Harry Potter and a Warm Night Between
by ssfr
Summary: An impressionable 10 year old Harry starts reading Dragonriders of Pern , and dives headfirst down the rabbit hole after his saving people thing . . . 1985: Is running a mercenary company doing counterterrorism better than being broke and homeless? 1986: Contras, and bandits in Africa! 1987: Mercenaries need to be paid 1988: Another Dragon! 1989: To Space!
1. 1985

Harry Potter and a Warm Night _Between_

Based On J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter

Influenced by many things

History items copied and or paraphrased from Wikipedia

This year's recommendations, in no particular order: Dragonriders of Pern, The Blue Sword, Excitable Boy, Misfits, State of Confusion, Cultosaurus Erectus, Robotech, Star Trek:TOS, The Last Unicorn

The book was old, and thick, and had people riding dragons on the dust jacket. Harry checked the price, and then the small stack of coins he'd collected over the last few days. He had enough for _two_ books. The thinner book next to it had the same author, and a pretty girl surrounded by tiny dragons on the dust jacket.

He paid the lady behind the desk at the library bookstore, tucked the dust jackets inside his new books, and set out to find a safe place to read his new treasure.

The story is captivating, Lessa was him, kinda, but she chose to be a drudge, and live, and plot her revenge, it wasn't just thrust upon her for no reason she could figure out. The Weyr sounds interesting, and the dragonriders of the book's title as well.

He looks up, gives a quick scan of the area under the tree he's hiding in, then dives back into his book.

Lessa got him, got Fax, killed him as surely as if it was her own hand that did it. Why wasn't it her own hand? Unless he slept lightly, she could have stabbed him easily, maybe sewn him in his bedsheets first, but then she would have to deal with his men . . . But a dragon might be better than a hold that needs rebuilding after a decade of neglect.

Going B _etween_ , he'd done that, all by himself. Maybe he was a dragon, like Almathea was a unicorn?

Lessa and F'lar settle in at the Weyr, and the eggs hatch, all gangly awkwardness, blood, and outsized eyes, and Ramoth.

"And she's no Jorra," Harry says to himself, speaking for the first time in hours, quoting the book. Lessa had control of her life, even as a drudge it was her choice, she was hiding from certain death, or perhaps worse. What did Harry have? An empty tummy, enough change to buy discards at the library, a warm cupboard to sleep in, a not too lumpy mattress, as much food as he could sneak, an aunt, uncle, and cousin out of a Roald Dahl book, maybe James and the Giant Peach . . . When Lessa finally learned how to go _Between_ , he'd try it.

But for now, it was time to get out of the tree, hide his treasures, and go make supper for his . . . not family, blood kin, perhaps?

 **March 1985: Richard M. Stallman first publishes the GNU Manifesto**

"So," Harry says softly to himself, "You picture, carefully, where you want to go, then pull yourself _Between_ , and pop back out where you want to be." He pauses, thinking about the last time he went, the first time he went, _Between_. The school roof, the dumpster full of stinking lunch trash, Dudley's gang searching for him, the way the gravel drifted, exposing the tar in places, the shallow puddles from March rains . . . With where to go fixed firmly in his mind, his books in a grey plastic grocery bag in his hands, he _reaches_ for the cold, airless dark of _Between_.

His breath escapes in a rush, _Between_ as dark as his cupboard during a power failure in a rainstorm, colder than being doused in a puddle of slush, seeping towards his bones, the lack of air getting urgent . . . And then he is looking down at that roof, the puddles, the gravel, the slight, dark head of his younger self looking down at Dudley's angry young face . . . He ducks back, away from the edge of, he looks around, then lays flat on top of the roof of the little room that houses the roof access door, and stays quiet as his younger self is caught and dragged inside to be yelled at.

He rolls over, looking up at the dreary March day in 1985, and smiles, "I really am a dragon!"

 **3 March 1985: a quake hits Chile, killing 177, injuring 2,575, destroys 142,489 houses, and leaves about a million people homeless**

Getting down will be much easier, and quicker, than getting up to the roof. He reads more of Dragonflight, the first book, and discovers that Lessa figured out the same property of being able to go _Between_ times, as well as places. After the students have gone home Harry chooses a spot on the ground, and dives _Between_ , barely long enough to gasp before he's outside the school gates and walking away.

He could go home, but there is already a Harry there now, and if he _times_ it back to when he just came from, that's hardly an adventure. He swings his bag of books back and forth as he walks, if he was a dragon he wouldn't mind sleeping out, but he'd need to eat a lot more, is a herdbeast the size of a sheep or a cow? Sheep he might be able to steal for a few days, but cows . . . What kind of dragon would he want to be, anyway? A little blue, a bronze, a giant gold? A blue would be easier to feed, but a gold would be awesome. Awesome enough to be worth it?

He clutches his books close, then looks around, yeah, not a good place to turn into a dragon-shaped dragon. He sets off for a clearing he'd liked, until Dudley's gang had discovered it, a couple years ago . . . He smiles, a couple years from now, also.

He slips through the trees, sets his books down on a dryish rock, and starts to unfold . . . he stops, suddenly, and strips to his underwear, "It would be nice if my clothes didn't get torn up like the Hulk, but," he piles his clothes on his bag of books, steps back, and unfolds into a giant golden dragon with iridescent faceted eyes. A triumphant bugle escapes her throat, and she throws herself into the air with a thunderclap of great wings. A quick flight shows just how poor her prospects for supper as a dragon are in Little Whinging, and she backwings back into her clearing, and folds herself back int a human shape.

"The naked," she says, looking at her bare crotch, "I somewhat expected." She gathers her scattered clothing, blown about by the wind of her departure and return, pleased to note that she's a little taller as a girl, and Dudley's outgrown shirt is still long enough to cover everything important. "I'm so glad I washed these myself," she says as she pulls on her, also formerly Dudley's, pants. She holds up, dubiously, the greyish rag that remains of her underwear, then stuffs it in a pocket anyway, "I think I need to learn how to sew."

 **8 March 1985: a Beirut car bomb kills 80 and injures 200**

"Yep, time to get out of Little Whinging," Harry tells herself, tucked into a doorway halfway down an alley, as the bobbies totally fail to to make the turn after her.

"You'd think," she continues, "That a criminal delinquent would be better at shoplifting."

She pulls the pack of hotdogs back out, "Gut bombs," rips it open, and eats four, one after the other, cold from the package, "Yuck."

 **11 March 1985: Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party**

"The law, in it's infinite fairness, prohibits," she pauses, "or was it forbids? Both rich and poor from stealing food and sleeping under bridges."

The concrete roof over her head thrums with the cars passing over it, and she tucks her feet a little closer. The prestressed concrete beams form a little cave, wide and deep enough to keep her out of sight, as well as block the wind. The concrete is a little hard underneath her, but it could be worse.

"It can always be worse," she re-assures herself, her head pillowed on her bag of books, and drifts off to sleep.

 **16 March 1985: AP reporter Terry Anderson taken hostage in Beirut**

A quick discussion with a librarian gets her not only the quote, but the author as well, Anatole France.

"To accomplish great things," She re-reads aloud, just above a whisper, "we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe."

 **17 March 1985: Expo '85, the Tsukuba World's Fair, opens in Ibaraki, Japan**

1985, Harry has decided, is rather a miserable year. Not that there was much work for a ten year old in 1989, but the begging was better. She had thought a girl might have a better time of it, but the creepy feelings she had about most of the people who stopped to talk to her . . .

She'd gotten a scone from an older woman somewhere east of Soho, which feels safer than Surrey, if not entirely safe, but the beggars in Soho seem hungrier than she is. She keeps walking, blinks a moment when she realizes the couple walking down the opposite side of the street arm in arm are a couple of blokes, then smiles, "Guess this is a right place."

 **10 April 1985: Madonna launches her Virgin Tour in New York City**

"They put a parking lot on the piece of land, where the supermarket used to stand," she sings along with the radio, "before that they put up a bowling alley, on the site that used to be the local pally."

"Come dancing!"

 **12 April 1985: El Descanso bombing near Madrid, Spain**

"It is only the poor who pay cash, and that is not from virtue, but because they are refused credit," Harry tells the man at the newspaper stand.

He laughs, and doesn't complain when Harry puts the paper back after reading the front page.

 **19 April 1985: The Soviet Union performs a nuclear test in eastern Kazakhstan**

She doesn't like to beg in Soho. There aren't many creeps, and many people are willing to share, but they are almost as poor as she is, and she can go days at a time without being really hungry. The nicer neighborhoods of London, she sighs, everyone is blind, except the Bobbies, who are quick to run her off. Children's Services would see her fed, but they only _might_ be better than her kin. She could steal things easily enough, a quick dive _Between_ would let her slip into anywhere she could see, or could visit during the day, but . . .

Whitechapel was looking like a bust, too. She ducks into an alley that should be on the way out, then turns around a minute later, another dead end.

A small gang of teenagers is blocking the exit back to the main street, "What have we here," one of them asks, not the one in the front middle, but a couple to the side and a pace or two back, "A little beggar boy, looking to horn in on our turf?"

Well, that explains both a little of her poor luck begging and her good luck in not being assaulted, "I'm just looking around, and I'm on my way out anyway."

"You need to pay the toll," another boy says.

"No money, no food, nothing of value on me. Let me pass."

"You shall not pass!" a different boy says, gesturing grandly.

Harry sighs, wanting to just unfold into Ramoth and bite one of these boys, give him a quick shake and drop his corpse steaming on the cold April bricks, but not really wanting to kill any of them, nor to replace her clothes. "Why are you doing this? Don't you have anything better to do?"

"No, not really," the first boy to speak says, "We keep the other gangs off our blocks, pick up the junkies and get them home, get a few quid and some food. School's useless, there's no work, Maggie and her Conservatives have destroyed the economy, might as well have some fun picking on some dumb kid who shouldn't be on our turf."

Harry suddenly smiles, "Maybe I can do something about that," and she dives _Between_.

 **23 April 1985: New Coke released**

It isn't food, but Harry's begging expedition to Grosvenor Square isn't a complete failure, nearly a quid in change, and, closer to the American embassy, a can of Coke that tastes completely wrong.

 **11 May 1985: A fire at a football match in Bradford, England, kills 56**

"awoo," Harry sings to herself, "He was looking for a place called Lee Ho Forks, gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein," bobbing her head to the beat, "He's the hairy-handed gent who ran amok in Kent, but lately he's been seen in Mayfair."

She dances along the sidewalk on Upper Brooks street, "Werewolves of London again."

 **13 May 1985: Philadelphia police bomb a row-house occupied by MOVE, a radical group, starting a fire that destroyed 65 homes, as well as killing 11, including 5 children aged 7-13**

"I could tell you I need bus money, but actually I'm just hungry," Harry smiles up at the pretty brown-haired woman, "Not really hungry, I had a burger yesterday, but I'd really appreciate it if you could spare me some change."

 **16 May 1985: Antarctic Ozone Hole first reported**

Harry has cleaned up a lot today, the better to sneak, and walks the remaining ten blocks to the British Museum after diving _Between_ to the closest alley she's been to. A quick recon as she walks along the wrought-iron fence facing Great Russel street, then she dives _Between_ past the man who looks like he's checking tickets, and walks quickly but not hurriedly, following the signs for the British Library Reading Room. Lacking an address, she's not likely to be able to stay long, but she wants to see 40 kilometers of bookshelves in one room.

 **19 May 1985: John Anthony Walker arrested for passing classified naval communications to the Soviet Union**

Her stomach growls, and Harry glares at it, "I fed you recently, shut up."

Her middle grumbles at her again, so Harry starts counting fingers, "I went to the Museum three days ago, and that nice lady got me fish and chips," She looks at her fingers again, "Yeah, that was three days before that. Let's go find some food."

 **20 May 1985: Four RUC officers killed by a Provisional IRA bomb near Killean, County Down**

She watches, singing softly, "give my daddy a job 'cause he needs one, he's got lots of mouths to feed," as the young mother locks her apartment, headed to work, "Father Christmas, give us your money, we don't have time for your silly toys . . ." She trails off.

Diving _Between_ into the apartment lets her watch some TV news, and that lets her dive _Between_ to Killean, County Down, where she watches the work crews clean up the victims of an IRA bomb. The news said four dead Royal Ulster Constables.

A deep breath and a dive _Between_ has her back in the room where she starts, by channel hopping, looking for somewhere that would have work for a both a dragon and young, under-educated, inner-city kids. There is a report on Nicaragua, and the Communist Sandinista government, and the war against the Contra, the report calls them rebels, but they're terrorists, just like the IRA, not attacking governments, but poor villagers.

Diving _Between_ halfway around the world takes far less time than _timing_ it back five years, but longer than London to Ireland. She ties her clothes up in a bundle, stashes them in a tall tree at the edge of a small Nicaraguan village, and unfolds into a bronze dragon before taking off with a thunderous clap of his wings.

The jungle is teeming with life, and he snatches a monkey from a tree before he's flown a mile. One shake of his head and he's swallowing the dead but still twitching monkey whole. The Contras didn't leave much trail, but he can, not see, nor smell, really, but follow them. There are ten Contras in this raiding party, and they have firearms, and some sort of rocket launcher they haven't fired. Harry reaches them as they get to a truck, and two start to climb into the cab, the rest headed towards the back. He lands in front of the truck, leans in, iridescent faceted eyes swirling, **'** _Where are you murderers going.'_

The man in the driver's seat yells something in Spanish as he fumbles to start the truck, _'I guess telepathy doesn't make up for the language barrier,'_ Harry says, reaching in the door and pulling the driver out in his talons. He looks at the bloody, but still breathing man in his hand, and sets him in the bed of the truck. The front passenger is trying to run away, as are the other men, so Harry subdues them as gently as he can without leaving them able to flee, piles them in the back of the truck, then dives _Between_ with it.

The Contras are gasping and shivering, frost instantly forming on the truck, when they appear in the devastated village. Nicaraguan soldiers surround them immediately, but it takes a while to find one who speaks English. The chief soldier, talking through the translator, seems quite willing to pay Harry and as many others as he could bring to fight the Contras, but doesn't have the authority to promise anything.

Harry thanks them, and flies off. He lands, folds back into human shape, notes that he has a penis again, then dives _Between_ back to the tree where he stashed his clothes, dresses, and dives _Between_ to Soho.

HP&aWNB

"You boys looking for some work?" Harry, Lessa, asks the gang she had found in Whitechapel.

"What kind of work are you offering?"

"Dangerous work, but we'd get training out of it, as well as pay."

"There's nothing legal like that around here."

"Nope. Nicaragua. You'll be paid as a Soldado, or Private, of the Nicaraguan Army, but you'll answer to me, not the Nicaraguan government. The Nicaraguan government will provide the training."

"Why would we answer to you, little boy?"

Lessa smiles, "Because I am a dragon, I negotiated the contract, and I can get you to the fight. It won't be easy, we'll be on the defensive a lot, but I should be able to take the fight to the Contras, which will help keep them off the villages you will be protecting."

 **23 May 1985: Thomas Patrick Cavanaugh sentenced to life in prison for attempting in sell stealth bomber secrets to the Soviet Union**

"No, you can't carry very many people on a dragon's back," Lessa tells her next group of transportees, "And I can't carry very many at a time in my hands, so everyone in the bag."

Several kids balk, and have to be cajoled.

 **25 May 1985: approximately 10,000 killed by a tropical cyclone and accompanying storm surge in Bangladesh**

Lessa listens to the morning news from the BBC on a shortwave radio, the only reliable English language news she's found it Nicaragua so far, as she gets ready for morning physical training with her company. They're far short of a proper infantry company, both in skills and personnel, but both are growing. She yawns, a little tired, having accomplished a late-night raid on another Contra camp, rather illegally deep in Honduras, but needs must. Almost a ton of American and Soviet weaponry, ten fighters, twenty support personnel, three sad trucks and a nice, ish, car.

The news from Bangladesh is sad, but there is nothing she, or her company, can do about it. Some of her boys are calling home, recruiting mates and family members as either fighters or support. Apparently the local cooking is too different, so the whole company has promised to chip in to pay an English cook, if she can't afford it. A real doctor is actually higher on her priority list, someone good at trauma care.

Driving, rifles, and tactics for the company, strategy, politics, and economics for her, today.

 **29 May 1985: 38 spectators killed at the European Cup final in Brussels, Belgium**

Lessa picks up the cook, Mary, eight years cooking for the British Army, ten years at a pub, decent recommendations.

Mary does scream like a little girl as soon as they pop out of _Between_.

 **31 May 1985: 41 tornadoes hit across the U.S. and Canada, killing 77**

Mary is settling in, as the oldest member of Lessa's company. She's appropriated a translator, and is working well with the Sandinista cooks.

 **6 June 1985: Josef Mengele exhumed in Brazil**

Harry gets to shoot things today, separate from the rest of his company, 'To preserve morale,' by hiding the fact that he has never shot a firearm before.

"This," Sargento de Primera Ortega, actually a distant cousin of President Daniel Ortega, says, "Is a Kalashnikov AK-47. It is very reliable, but the sights are primitive and only good for a few hundred meters. It fires a very short 7.62 millimeter round, which travels relatively slow and has a relatively high drop rate. However, with a little practice, it works very well for killing people, and with a little maintenance it will last about forever

"When you get a weapon, first you make sure that it is loaded, or unloaded, whichever is appropriate. You always keep your weapon pointed in a safe direction, at something you want to shoot, or won't be sad if you shoot, and keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to fire," he demonstrates, then hands the rifle to Harry, and walks him through the process, "The safety is on when up, single-shot all the way down, and full-auto in the middle. You won't be firing full-auto until you have single-shot down."

Harry shoots a target, examines it, shoots another, examines it, reloads, and repeats all morning, prone on sandbags, prone without sandbags, kneeling, standing, supported, unsupported. Steady position, breathing, sight picture, trigger squeeze, again and again.

His shoulder hurts when he goes to bed that night.

 **15 June 1985: Studio Ghibli founded in Tokyo**

"You've got to watch this, it is amazing!" Harry Crewe, one of the older boys in Harry's Whitechapel gang, says, waving a VHS tape.

Lessa shrugs, and follows along with the other dozen or so, and is blown away by the first twelve episodes of Robotech.

It will be years before she gets to see Super-dimensional Fortress Macross in Japanese.

 **20 June 1985: a series of bomb blasts occur in Nepal**

Harry Crewe has something else on tape, so the gang sits down to watch six random episodes of Star Trek, "Balance of Terror," "The Naked Time," "Arena," "Space Seed," "The devil in the Dark," and "A Piece of the Action."

Lessa decides the gang needs a proper copy.

 **23 June 1985: Air India Flight 182 bombed, 329 dead**

Harry sighs, looking at the accused, and the victim. He turns to look at the gathered members of his company, "What are the capital crimes you agreed to when you signed up?"

"Rape and intentional fratricide will be punished by being bitten by a dragon, then shaken to death." The gathered witnesses say, mostly in sync. This isn't, unfortunately, the gang's first Court Martial.

Harry turns to the accused, "Did he say no?"

"No," the young woman answers.

"Did he say yes?"

"No."

"Was he competent to say yes?"

"He was passed out drunk, but he was into me before he passed out!" she protests.

"Are you in a relationship with him such that you could reasonably expect his retroactive consent?"

"No."

"How did he react when he woke up?"

"He screamed, and ran, and hid."

"Are those the actions of someone who gave retroactive consent?"

"No."

"Are you guilty of rape?"

"Sexual assault, certainly, but I don't want to die, I'll never do it again!"

"She's said that before!" at least three voices speak up from the crowd.

Harry puts his face in his hands, then looks up, "Get up here, swear in, we need your testimony."

HP&aWNB

 _"Are you ready,"_ Ramoth asks.

"No, but I don't think I ever will be," the woman says.

Ramoth sighs, then her great big head darts forward, lightly grabbing the woman around her middle, and jerks suddenly, left, then right. She drops the body, then goes to rinse the blood from her mouth.

 **3 July 1985: Back to the Future opens**

"Is anyone, at all, still in any way confused about what is and what isn't-" Lessa cuts herself off, "Your friend says they want to have sex, and then you get shitfaced drunk and don't remember a damned thing other than you wake up sticky and hung over. Rape or not?"

"Do we remember saying we wanted to have sex? Did we sign a note before we started drinking?" Someone calls from the crowd, "If not," she draws a finger across her throat.

"Your friend has had sex with you before, but they're passed out on the bed. You poke them, and they wake up a little. You think they said yes, they'd have sex with you."

"Did you record it? How awake are they?" A boy, this time, "Did they just say yes because they think that'll get you to let them sleep? Not a good idea."

"You meet a pretty member of the appropriate sex, and they come home with you. You give them a drink or two before you start groping on them, and then you have sex."

"Did they say yes? Were they mostly sober? Do they even speak a language you understand?"

"Yep. So, Sex is apparently awesome. Many people really like it. Some people don't, and some people just don't care. Some people are fine with having sex with anyone, some only want to have sex with their really good friends, some only want to have sex with one person, and some don't want to have sex at all. Just about everyone wants to have some agency when they decide to have sex, even if they want their partner to take complete control after that," Lessa stares at her gang, "So, we need to get affirmative consent. That is the rule we agreed to, it doesn't matter if they are a friend, an enemy, a POW, a local civilian, everyone needs to know they are going to have sex, and say yes.

"When doesn't a yes count?"

"Too drunk, too high, too scared," the gang chants back at her.

"Am I going to have to bite anyone for rape again?"

"I hope not," a wag in the crowd answers.

Lessa sighs, and hides her face in her hand.

 **10 July 1985: Rainbow Warrior sunk in Auckland Harbor**

"So, I'll shift the teams _Between_ about midnight, then we'll infiltrate the camp at 04, since they've been having shift change at 05, and Harry's team will get the trucks ready. Mick's team will shift the ammo out of the ammo tent, and I'll start a ruckus as soon as they're ready to roll. Once the trucks are out of camp, I'll shift them _Between_ back to camp, and fly harassment until dawn, when the HINDs will get there. Any questions?"

Several kids shake their heads.

 **23 July 1985: The Commodore Amiga launched at Lincoln Center**

Lessa is flying over Honduras, looking for another Contra base, unfolded into a little green dragon. The Contras are already hiding their bases better, since unlike the Sandinistas, she is not worried about the Honduran government complaining of invasion. She thinks that if the Honduran government doesn't want the Sandinistan army raiding Contra bases in Honduras, they shouldn't be letting them operate out of Honduras, but she isn't a government official.

As a contractor, she can chase Contras where ever she wants, it isn't like the Contras or the Honduran government can catch her anyway. The U.S. would have a hard time catching her.

 **14 August 1985: Accomarca Massacre in Peru**

Lessa's company are eager to see a movie, and Lessa is upset about Peru, but she can't see any way to fix it, not even last week. She could, maybe, find the killers, but stopping it would have taken, basically, toppling the Peruvian government, and that, so far as she, and the Sandinistan analysts she had talked to about it, could tell, that would be worse. It is really, she thinks, sad when a government killing dozens of its own people for no good reason is better than the alternative.

So they are at the Hermosa Beach Cinema, in Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica, to see Back to the Future. Harry'd liked the bits he saw, in England, on the telly, but here and now it was new, and few of his company had had money to waste on going to the movies.

The Sandinistas are looking after their compound, so Ramoth took the whole company, all 37, in a great mesh bag, _Between_ , almost to town, and they walk the rest of the way in. Lessa catches up after a moment, dressed again, all of them in niceish civilian clothes.

 **20 August 1985: Iran receives 96 BGM-71 TOW missiles in exchange for hostages in Lebanon and profits to aid the Contras**

This Contra camp is fully covered in camouflage netting, and only has three squads worth of fighters and two cooks. Lessa is terribly tempted to take it on by herself, but she dives Between back to her compound anyway.

Four hours later, she is back with four squads, and the camp is gone, nothing left but flattened grass, mud, and trash.

 **31 August 1985: Richard Ramirez, the serial killer known as the Night Stalker, captured in L.A.**

Lessa is patrolling as Ramoth, with a squad of ten tied onto her Load Carrying Equipment, made of sewn-together ratchet straps. It's uncomfortable, and itches, and that's just her problem with it. The squads have stopped comparing themselves to magazines and action figures, but no one is really comfortable with the arrangement.

 **19 September 1985: an earthquake hits Mexico City, about 10,000 are killed, 30,000 injured, and 95,000 left homeless**

"Arr, me hearties," Harry says, having watched the whole stack of pirate movies the last trip to town brought back. Town, this time, was Manhattan, KS.

 **28 September 1985: Brixton Riots start after a police detective shoots a Jamaican immigrant in her bed while looking for her 21 year old son**

Riots in London, Harry stares at the radio, how lovely.

He shakes his head, turns back to the map, Sandinista intelligence has pinned down, to within twenty miles, a major Contra base.

 **4 October 1985: the Free Software Foundation founded**

"Keep's calling me it's master, but I feel more like it's slave, hauling me, faster and faster, to an early, early grave," Lessa is singing to herself as she waits in line for dinner chow. Mary, the cook, has promised the first fifty, and Lessa, beef wellington. She wonders if it'll be as awesome as everyone seems to think.

 **13 November 1985: Armero Tragedy kills an estimated 23,000**

"I can bring about three hundred relief workers to the area yesterday, or the day before," Lessa tells the Disaster Relief team, "but they will have to walk in from the drop off point."

"How will we explain how we got that many people there?"

"Maybe you started moving them when the volcanologists started talking about the eruption?"

"That might work," Juan Sanchez, the team lead, says, "But we'll need the aircraft there before then, and the paperwork."

"We can gather volunteers now, and put them on a plane three days ago," Lessa frowns, "We'll need some way to move on that mud, and digging tools. I don't know if we can get anyone evacuated before the lahar gets there, but that would be much easier than saving them afterwards."

"That sounds like a plan," Sanchez says, nodding, "How are we going to keep your part in this secret?"

"The same way we've kept the fact that a giant dragon has been fighting the Contra secret, no one will believe them, and it's classified."

HP&aWNB

Harry walks out to the young dragon in his pontoon shoes, "Lets get you out of here," he says in Spanish, and drops the duffle bag, lined with a sealed garbage bag full of pillows, in front of her, "Grab the bag and try to push it underneath you. I will dig, and together we will get you out."

A hand reaches out of the pile of rubble, and Harry starts throwing broken chunks of house off of the pile.

It actually takes another two men, with a chainsaw and a jackhammer, to cut her collapsed house off of her, but they get her out of the watery mud, warm, and to medical attention.

"Come back to Nicaragua," Harry tells the young dragon, who's name is Olmayra, sitting down next to her cot in the field hospital near her destroyed town, "There is work for a dragon like us, and people to save, good deeds to do."

"I am not a dragon."

"I am sure you are, you just need to remember how to unfold from your human shape," Harry says, taking the older girl's bandaged hand.

"Unfold," the girl says, contemplatively, starting to unfold right there in her bed.

"Outside!" Harry says quickly, "Dragons are big, and there are a lot of hurt people here."

Olmayra, Harry sees, is a Quetzalcoatl, a feathered serpent, rather than a more Pernese dragon, great long constrictor body, feather crest framing her head, and huge feathered wings like a hawk, quick and agile, " _I will come with you to Nicaragua, and fight Contras,_ " she agrees, " _But my mother will be sad_."

"I think she will be happy you are alive and safe, and that your brother only lost a finger," Harry looks at the scattered scraps of clothing, "But we need to get you some more clothes, before you fold back into a girl, or a boy."

" _I can do that_?" she asks.

"Of course."

 **18 November 1985: Calvin and Hobbes debuts in 35 U.S. Newspapers**

The Contras break and run at the first sight of Olmayra, feathered crest raised, wings cocked, as she stoops out of the sun.

" _I don't even get that much respect,"_ Lessa says, Ramoth-shaped.

" _You are not a feathered serpent."_

 **24 December 1985: David Lewis Rice murders civil rights attorney Charles Goldmark, his wife, and two children on suspicion of being Jewish communists.**

A tall, well, taller than human form Harry, blonde girl smiles down at him, the faint coolness of _Between_ wafting off her, "It is time, Angharad Potter, for the Assassin's Guild to, with the aid of the League of Dragons, retake our home Fortress of Alamut."

Harry turns fully to the girl, "And you are?"

The girl's smile turns into a grin, "Luna Lovegood," she takes three steps back, and unfolds into a tiny, for a dragon, white dragon, _"Or you can call me Ruth."_

"It is nice to meet another dragon, but why are you here?" Harry asks her.

She folds back into human shape, and Harry is a little envious to note that she not only is still a girl, not only didn't shred her clothes, but is wearing them when she folds back, "I need to save my mother in a couple years, so I need to learn how to fight. You, the guild, and taking Alamut, will teach me what I need to know."

 **27 December 1985: Abu Nidal terrorists shoot up the airports in Rome and Vienna, killing 18 and injuring 120**

Luna plops down on one of the dayroom couches, and snatches Lessa off her feet, pulling the slighter girl into her lap.

Lessa stiffens, squirms a moment, then relaxes, leaning into Luna's hug.

 **27 December 1985: Dian Fossey found murdered in Rwanda**

"I know her," Olmayra starts in Spanish, "Well, know of her, anyway," she reads the newspaper article, "Why did they kill her?"

"Because she was saying that the gorillas should be protected, and interfering with the poachers way of life."

"But the poachers are wrong! Even if killing the gorillas to make ashtrays is a valid way to live, they'll run out of gorillas to catch if they don't cut back a lot."

"Yeah, but the ones catching gorillas don't make much money off of it, and the ones further up the chain don't care. There is no way to end poaching without killing a lot of poachers and lifting pretty much all of Africa out of poverty."

"How can I do that?"

"I don't know."

"Then lets save her, and ask if she's got any ideas," Olmayra looks at the paper, "Time it back a week, or two?"

"Two," Lessa nods, "Ten soldiers each."

HP&aWNB

Baboons, Ramoth decides, taste just like monkeys, which makes sense, because they are monkeys, just a bit bigger and meaner. She and Olmayra were taking turns hunting for their little raiding party, more a defending party, unfortunately. They still didn't know exactly who attacked Fossey, and it's Christmas. Karisoke is having a party, and happy noises drift out of the research camp. Olmayra's squad will have watch over Fossey tonight, but it is entirely possible nothing will happen until tomorrow night.

HP&aWNB

Gunfire wakes Lessa from her light doze, and she unfolds as she drops out of the tree. _"What's going on?"_

Sargento de Secunda Gutierez yells back, "Four men, drunk, two with pistols and all with machetes. They're down, the gunmen are dead, but the survivors are incoherent."

" _Maybe they don't speak Spanish?"_

"That could be, too."

Ramoth slips behind some trees, because she is not sure if her clothes survived her half-asleep unfolding.

HP&aWNB

Dian Fossey is quite grumpy to be woken up in the middle of the night by gunfire, "You've been watching me for two weeks?"

"Yes," Lessa says, "The newspaper article didn't say much more than that you had been killed, and your body found later this morning," she shrugs, "It seemed easier to drop in a bit early."

"Why?"

"Because your work is important. Because we could. Because Olmayra asked me to help her end poaching in Africa."

"And how do you think you're going to do that?"

"We can kill a lot of poachers, but until we end poverty in Africa we'll keep having lots of new ones."

"Here, they need land, and some more livestock, and the poorest will be doing OK," Fossey looks deeper into the mountains, "In Uganda, they need to stop killing each other."

Olmayra pokes Lessa in the side, "Translate."

Lessa recaps.

"Tell her we can provide soldiers, and some money, but we need local support, the mothers and grandmothers, to tell us what they need."

At the end of 1985, Olmayra is 13, Luna is 13, and Harry/Lessa is 11

Log:

Early May 2017: Reading too many Harry Potter fanfic, and thinking about how one cannot,

canonically, be a magical creature animagus. Pernese Dragons are non- magical . . .

Mid May 2017: Thinking about other books that would influence things, checked out a copy of

The Blue Sword and Dragonriders of Pern

17 May 2017: Realized that, while the Harry Potter books are firmly removed from muggle

time, this story isn't. It's all about what Harry's saving people thing would look

like if it got Harry's full support. Hit up wikipedia for more historical context.

27 May 2017: Realized that, after chopping anything Harry wouldn't be paying attention to,

that Olmayra's paying forward, and is interested in all of the disasters . . .

5 June 2017: More.

16 June 2017: More.

18 June 2017: More. Finished 1985 first draft.

28 June 2017: Played with formatting. Tiny edits.


	2. 1986

Harry Potter and a Warm Night _Between_

Based On J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter

Influenced by many things

History items copied and or paraphrased from Wikipedia

Recommendations for 1986: Warren Zevon. The Kinks. Emma Lazarus. Studio Ghibli. Gainax. Gamera!

 **13-24 January 1986: The South Yemen Civil War**

"Of course," Luna says, "This doesn't make the news until it's over. About 20,000 dead, mostly civilians, but it's Yemen, so the west doesn't care."

Olmayra gets out the map, and looks over the area, "Too close to Saudi, too many people, too much desert, too many ships, we can't do anything as we are."

"Nope, we need more money and more bodies. A lot more bodies."

 **24 January 1986:** Voyager 2 **reaches Uranus. Official pronunciation quickly changes**

Luna learns really quickly. She can already speak Spanish well enough for general usage, and is learning her military jargon quickly.

None of the gang speaks any of the African languages yet, although Olmayra can cuss in Swahili, so Lessa, Luna, and Olmayra have a translator recommended by Dian with them. He's adapting to riding around in a dragon's LCE fairly well.

Unlike the plan, the old men of the village have insisted on participating, and are preventing the women from talking.

"Harry," Lessa calls Harry Crewe, who's in charge of the squad she's carrying today, "Could you take your boys and distract the men? Next time we'll bring another translator, and you can take them off to talk to separately from the beginning."

Harry suddenly smiles, "I've got just the thing!" he waits for the old man talking to pause, and then speaks up. "While the girls are making girl-talk with the mothers and grandmothers, I'd like to take the men and examine the defenses of your village." This is met with general acceptance, and soon the men are all off with Lessa's squad.

Olmayra breaths a big sigh of relief, "Now that they have left, let's see if we can actually help you help your village."

"Why are you talking to us? We don't run things," one woman with grey hair and a few wrinkles on her dark face says.

Olmayra smiles at her, "That's what my Grandfather would have said, too. Men tend to find similar solutions to other men, and men's solutions aren't working in Africa. So I want to find women's solutions, and women's problems. At worst, it won't help."

The old women all nod, and the mothers look thoughtful.

 **25 January 1986: National Resistance Army takes over Uganda. Half a million people believed killed over the previous five years of fighting**

Ramoth, Olmayra, and a translator drop onto the front steps of the presidential palace.

" _You need,"_ Ramoth starts, and the translator relays, _"To stop being assholes in the north."_

 **28 January 1986: Space Shuttle** Challenger **spontaneously disassembles 73 seconds after launch**

"That's kinda fucking sad," Luna says in English, watching the Challenger launch go wrong on the news again, not quite vertical pillar of smoke with a puff and the diverging trails of the solid rocket boosters to either side. "The only way we could have stopped it today was calling in a bomb threat, and then it would have blown up in a week," she shakes her head a moment, half smiling sadly, "Because it'll be cold there next week, too, and they'll be even more impatient."

"How do you know?"

"It's not my second time through this week."

Olmayra gives Luna a hug.

 **29 January 1986: Yoweri Museveni sworn in as President of Uganda**

"How is Uganda doing so far?"

"They've improved things in the north, but I don't know if they're still breeding bandits. The Lord's Resistance Army would be a nasty piece of work if we don't manage to disrupt, no, preempt them," Luna says, "Any Contras to be found?"

"No attacks in a month, but Sandinista intelligence says they're still in Honduras."

"Want to go patrol with me?"

"Sounds fun, give me fifteen minutes to grab a squad and get them loaded."

 **3 February 1986: Pixar Animation Studios opens in California**

Luna's busy with something, Olmayra's talking to the women of another village in Africa, and Ramoth has finally found the Contra camp she's been looking for.

The camp is huge, covered in lots of camo net, and actually has a tank. A T-34 that is probably older than everyone in the camp, but still a tank. One that, according to the track marks, at least ran recently. _"Harry,"_ Ramoth starts, _"I'm estimating four hundred people in this camp."_

Harry nods from his place in her LCE, "That's what I'd guess, too."

Harry watches a moment, _"Call back, and have them send the HINDs out. We'll stay here and keep them from escaping."_

"You heard the lady, everyone out!" Harry relays. He calls Teniente Gonzales, their air support officer, and gives her the information about the target. "They have a real tank, and it has moved since the last rain."

"I'll let the pilots know, they'll be really happy to get to shoot a tank."

 **7 February 1986: 'Baby Doc" Duvalier flees Haiti**

Olmayra had been hoping that the rumors of death squads were just that. Even as a human, she can hardly move through the destroyed village without stepping in someone's blood or on someone's body parts.

The smell is overwhelming, the iron tinge of blood, fresh, but already rotting meat, feces, urine, burnt wood and bodies.

The attackers killed all the livestock, except, apparently, a rooster who's crowing in a tree outside the village, and set fire to every hut. Olmayra blinks, realizing that the tiny scrap of flesh, head stomped flat, next to her foot isn't a monkey.

She unfolds, pictures the stars from that morning, just before the sky started to get light, and dives _Between_ , leaving her squad behind.

It takes her a half-hour to find the attackers, sitting around a campfire, waiting for their breakfast to finish cooking, getting ready for a hard day of rape, murder, and pillage. Olmayra lands in the campfire, smothering it, flinging hot coals everywhere, crushing five men in her landing.

One man starts yelling, trying to organize a defense. Olmayra bites his head, picking him up with her teeth in his neck. A quick shake of her head, and his body falls, knocking one man down and scaring another dozen into fleeing.

Olmayra spits his head out, and it rolls after the fleeing men a moment.

She slides over the man she knocked down, crushing him, and hits the closest man with a closed-mouth strike, which hurts her nose. The man drops, ribs and spine shattered, and she bites the next man, giving him a quick flick, then throwing him at the fastest man, thirty meters ahead. He drops, screaming, and Olmayra slithers over him, turning back to catch the last running man gently in her teeth. She rears back, and drops him on one of the men who's still breathing. There's a lovely crunching noise, and her man screams. She picks him up again, and drops him on a different man. By the third time, he's stopped screaming. By the sixth, he's stopped breathing.

Only a couple of them are still alive, one of whom is trying to crawl away. She gently pushes him flat with her nose, shoving him into the dirt, and he gasps, suffocating, fighting for breath, just a little flatter with every exhale. She continues to hold him down for a moment after he stops struggling, then slithers over the last man.

She double-checks that all of them are dead, then takes to the sky before diving _Between._

She pops out, muddy, bloody, and dripping, over an intact village, and a surprised squad.

 **15 February 1986: Maiden flight of the Beechcraft Starship**

"These men, these death squads," the old man in charge says, "Are operating out of Sudan, and have money, weapons, from somewhere else. Sudan doesn't have the money to attack us like this. More, Sudan doesn't have a reason, they can barely hold on to what they have."

"Maybe," Harry Crewe asks, "They are attacking for a reason other than conquest?"

"I don't know why they would. We're not Muslim, but we don't go trying to talk people out of being Muslim. We are not bandits, this is not a bandit camp. What reason could they have?"

"Maybe they want to get violent young men out of their country?"

"It would be cheaper to kill them."

"Maybe they want to make everyone afraid."

"Why, and of what? Some of these people maybe, they leave a few alive, so they can tell what they want, but killing everyone, killing all the livestock, throwing dead bodies in the wells, why would anyone do that?" the old man asks, "Why spread suffering, if it doesn't even do anything for you?"

 **19 February 1986: U.S. Senate ratifies UN anti-genocide convention after 37 years**

"How do you unfold into different dragons?" Olmayra asks Luna, "It would have been easier to kill those bandits if I hand hands," she pauses, "And I could have captured one alive, if I'd thought of it."

"You unfold into your proper shape, right?" Luna says, gesturing, "So you need to see what you want to unfold into, just as you chose what you want to look like when you fold yourself up again."

Olmayra unfolds into a feathered serpent with cafe-au-lait arms, and laughs at herself, _"Could you demonstrate?"_

Luna nods, and unfolds into a great, gold, dragon, then folds herself into a girl who looks like Olmayra's longer-haired twin. A few minutes concentration, and she unfolds into a stupid-large turtle-shaped dragon, with fangs. She waves a clawed hand big enough to hold Olmayra's feathered serpent form, and Olmayra flies up to settle on her shoulder, examining Luna's enormous, crazy eyes.

" _Damn, that's scary."_

" _Scary hot,"_ Luna agrees, and suits actions to words, breathing fire and setting several trees alight.

Olmayra rubs the side of her face against Luna's turtle-face, _"Pretty fucking cool,"_ she agrees.

 **19 February 1986: Mir space station launched**

"Roland was a warrior, from the land of the midnight sun," Lessa sings to herself, cleaning her rifle after a day at the range, pausing to drop a cleaning rod down the barrel from the chamber end, continues, "On a dark and stormy day, so they set out for Biafra, to join the bloody fray. In sixty six and seven, they fought the Congo war, with their fingers on their triggers, knee deep in gore," she pauses, changes the dirty swab for a clean one, oils it, and pulls it through her barrel again, "They killed to earn their living, and to help out the Congolese."

"Hey, GM," one of her Soldado, she reads his nametape, Jones, starts, "What is going on in Africa?" He waves his hand, "Here, the U.S. was fucking with things, and keeping assholes in power to help American companies, and we're killing off the capitalist running dogs who want the U.S. back in here to fuck over everyone."

Lessa's lips quirk up, wondering if he just didn't notice, or if he doesn't consider the rich to be people.

"But the U.S. isn't fucking with Africa, so what's wrong?"

"The U.S. is involved in Africa, but they aren't the big problem," Lessa says, "Africa's problems date back to slavery. Different tribes, at different times, stole various of their neighbors and sold them to white men. On top of that, European countries divided Africa up between themselves, along map, not ethnic, lines, so most African countries are made of of members of two or more tribes, some of whom have genuine grievances against their neighbors. We have Ethiopia, which was a member of the League of Nations, invaded by Italy, another member of the League of Nations, in 1937, and annexed."

"Annexed?"

"Conquered, but the legal part, not the fighting part," She pauses to refit her bolt, spring, and **Click** bolt cover, "And the Italians at that point weren't even running their own country well," she runs through a functions check, then sets the rifle down, "After the war, the colonial powers gave up, but only after doing their best to make sure their former colonies would not succeed," she pasues, sighs, "And then we have the cold war and the International Monetary Fund."

"I thought the IMF was supposed to help countries."

"Top down economics never works. That's why trickle-down in the U.S. is leaving poor kids hungry enough to eat Ronnie Wax, that's why life sucks for a lot of people in the Soviet Union and China, that's why things aren't so bad here. The IMF gives countries loans, and imposes economic changes on them. They take a country that is money-poor, but everyone has enough to eat, and demand that they start growing cash crops and using artificial fertilizer. So now the country no longer has enough to eat, has their topsoil blowing away, no cash crops to sell, and debts to the IMF."

Jones nods, "That makes sense now. Add in proxy warfare between the U.S. and Soviets, and," he sighs, "You have a big mess. Olmayra wants to fix it? How?"

"We can't fix it, unless we kill everyone in Africa, and that's not a good fix. We can help the Africans fix Africa."

Jones rests his head on his hand, thinking for a minute, "You said top-down economics doesn't work. So we're going to do bottom-up economics?"

"Indeed. We're talking to the people with the greatest investment in Africa, the mothers and grandmothers, about what they need to make things better for their children."

"Don't the fathers and grandfathers want what's best for their kids?"

"Probably, but all of the big 'projects' that have failed in Africa were made up by men, to solve the problems the men saw. I don't know if it is nature or nurture, but they keep coming up with similar solutions that keep failing. Instead of trying to fix big, expensive problems, we're gonna solve little, cheap problems, but a lot of them."

"If we make enough little things better, it'll make the big things better?"

"That's what we're hoping. And killing a lot of bandits never hurts, either."

 **25 February 1986: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos goes into exile.**

"Well, that's one asshole out of power," Jones says, "Any idea if Aquino is another asshole?"

"She isn't," Luna says, looking up from her newspaper, "They'll continue to have problems, but things do get better during her Presidency."

 **25 February 1986: Egyptian military police set fire to and loot four luxury hotels in salary protest**

"Does it feel weird having separate names for your different faces?" Olmayra asks.

"Does it feel weird to answer to Olmayra when you're a boy?"

"No, not really."

"I'm still not used to answering to Angharad, but Lessa's the same as Harry to me, now. There are some differences, depending on which face I'm wearing. Lessa sings, Angharad loves hugs, Harry's better at hiding, but they're all minor things."

"Why don't you sing as Harry?"

"My voice sounds much prettier as Lessa, and I think there might be some internalized homophobia there, too."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, only girls and faggots sing, according to my uncle. I got the strap for singing "Jingle Bells" once."

Olmayra gives him a hug, and he tries not to flinch

 **9 March 1986: Navy divers find the crew compartment of** Challenger **, with the bodies of all seven astronauts still inside**

"So they were alive until the crew compartment hit the water," Olmayra asks in English, turning to Luna.

Luna nods, "That's why the manned rockets have crew escape rockets on top, to get the crew safely away, but the plane design limited the safety of the Shuttle, and the complexity of the thermal protection system, among other factors, limits the turnaround time, so it will never be what they wanted it to be. Too big, too heavy, too expensive, too dangerous."

 **27 March 1986: Russell Street Bombing in Melbourne kills a police constable, the first Australian policewoman killed in the line of duty**

Olmayra looks down at the raped, then mutilated, dead girl, then up at the unfortunate survivor of the attacking party, "I think your dead buddies are lucky ones today," she tells him in English.

He doesn't understand, so the local contact tries Swahili, then Luo before he does.

"Why?" he asks, through the translator.

"Because I'm going to make an example of you."

A fence post is appropriated, about as big around as Olmayra's fist. She unfolds into a blue Pernese dragon, and pushes the post into the ground until it is about waist high on the prisoner. He folds into a rather more muscular boy, and uses a machete to sharpen the end of the post. He gives the post a bit of a shove, decides it is sturdy enough, and unfolds into a blue dragon again. One taloned hand picks up the quite justifiably terrified prisoner, the other tears his pants open. Olmayra takes a deep breath, then gently wiggles the thrashing, screaming man's rectum onto the pointed end of the sharpened post, stopping when his feet barely touch the ground.

Olmayra folds back into girl-shape, and watches the man slowly quiet, pressed up on his tiptoes, his face a mask of torment. His leg muscles quiver, and he drops slightly, screams, tries to push himself up off the stake, then goes quieter, breathing heavily.

Olmayra turns, walks behind one of the burning huts, and vomits.

 **5 April 1986: Berlin Discotheque Bombing, 3 dead, 230 injured**

"Why are drugs illegal?"

"Because it makes them more expensive, and then there are more profits."

"Then why isn't booze illegal?"

"They tried that in the '20s, in the U.S., and realized it made too much profit for the crooks, and not enough profit for everyone else," Harry pauses, "And the crooks were getting too violent with each other."

 **13 April 1986: first child born to a non-related surrogate mother**

"Are we going to Hands Across America?" Luna asks, looking at Olmayra.

"It won't do much," Lessa says, then rolls to her feet, "But it won't cost much time or effort, either."

"It might be fun," Olmayra says, looking at her raw-scrubbed hands, "Ten dollars American each?"

"Yep," Luna says.

"Who is actually doing good work we'd approve of, in America, right now, not just staging for publicity?" Lessa shakes her head, "Most of the problems in America are political, so we're not going to fix any of them the way we are going. Maybe we can support someone who is at least going the right way, too."

"P-FLAG," is Luna's answer.

 **14 April 1986: 1 kg hailstones fall in Bangladesh, 92 dead**

The great name debate continues unabated, with the Banshees, the Assassins, the Vipers, SHADO, SPECTRE, Cobra, the Dragons, and nine or ten other names being proposed. Harry is against Banshee because they have no artillery, SHADO, SPECTRE, and Cobra are TV and movie villain groups, and the Vipers because none of them are venomous. Luna probably will get her way, simply by being so sure about it.

 **15 April 1986: American warplanes bomb Libya, at least 15 killed**

"Hey, GM," a soldado Angharad doesn't recognize starts, "Do we have the next tape of Robotech yet?"

"Dana just got let out of jail?" she answers, "Why do you call me gee-em, anyway?"

"'Cause you're the Guild-master," she, Angharad manages to read her name tape, Gordon, answers.

"Oh, that's good to know."

 **26 April 1986: Chernobyl disaster**

"Whell," Lessa stares at the TV, as video footage of the smoking ruin of the Soviet nuclear power plant plays again, "That is a mess."

"It didn't get much play in the Wizarding press, but weren't they testing emergency procedures or something dumb like that? I couldn't figure out any way to fix it."

"There probably isn't," Lessa sighs, "How many dead and how many poisoned?"

"Hundreds dead, thousands poisoned," Luna says, giving Lessa a hug.

 **9 May 1986: Short Circuit released**

Olmayra sets down her second bag full of African volunteers, and they spread out into the scrubland. They're not hunting death squads today, just ordinary poachers. Her squad drops out of their pouches on her LCE, and follow suit, setting up the ambush.

Once they are all set, Olmayra folds into girl-shape, then unfolds into her most-comfortable feathered serpent form. She dives between, appearing on the other side of the poacher's camp, and rears up, mouth open, wings spread wide, and hisses louder than a locomotive.

The poachers look up, screaming, and most of them flee immediately. A couple brave ones shoot at her, and one charges with a machete. She bomps him with her nose, hard enough to break his neck.

The shooters break and run. She flicks one trying to run past her with her tail, then whips it around to catch one on the other side. She hits him to hard, and he pops like a grape.

No one else tries to run past her.

 **23 May 1986: Somali President Siad Barre is injured in a car accident in Mogadishu**

This time the company is guarding it's own compound, and going to the movie in shifts. The soldiers are traveling more comfortably, only 16 per bag, and the three great gold dragons set them down in the clearing near Playa Hermosa before finding their own clearing to fold back into girl-shape. Angharad, taller and green-eyed rather than dark eyed like Lessa, smiles barely down at Luna, and Olmayra's curly-haired prettiness is taller, manages to fold into her clothes this time. Olmayra has much better consistency.

Everyone is inspired by the movie's upbeat message, as Number Five moves beyond what he was to become a good person.

 **25 May 1986: Hands Across America: At least 5,000,000 people attempt to form a human chain from Long Beach, CA, to New York, NY, to combat hunger and homelessness**

Luna has Olmayra on one side, Harry on the other, and about a hundred Assassins past him, leading down along Interstate 40, about half-way from Albuquerque to Grants, ten miles east of the Continental Divide.

After the fifteen minute's time ends their part of the line breaks up, and the adults around ask about the group of mostly-unaccompanied young people.

"We're a youth group dedicated to promoting social justice and ending poverty," is Harry's answer.

 **4 June 1986: Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty for selling U.S. Military intelligence to Israel**

"Another day, another Contra camp," Angharad says, "They are getting really good at hiding."

"Because we've killed most of the ones who aren't good at hiding," Harry Crewe says agreeably, "So we've got to be improving the quality of Contra remaining."

Angharad laughs, nodding.

 **9 June 1986: Rogers Commission report on the** _ **Challenger**_ **disaster released**

"Did you know that the Honduran government is running death squads?"

Lessa looks at Jones, "No, but they're a bunch of assholes. What did you hear?"

He holds out a large burlap bag full of money, "A man gave me this, he said his whole village raised as much as they could, but their priest and several people from the surrounding villages are missing. They may be dead already, but their bodies haven't turned up yet. They want to hire the Assassin's Guild to end the disappearances, and save anyone they can."

Lessa takes the bag, looks inside, "Good thing we're already being paid by Nicaragua, because this isn't much money."

"I know, but that's just wrong, you know."

"Yep. Do they have any idea where these guys are operating out of? I'll check with Sandinista intelligence, see if they can tell us anything."

 **12 June 1986: South Africa declares a State of Emergency**

Angharad looks at her command group, Olmayra, Luna, Harry Crewe, Jimmy Russel, and Charlie Bucket. "We have two facilities, and a name, Battalion 3-16."

She gestures at the map, which has a red and a blue ball-headed pin stuck in it, "One is their headquarters, the other their prison facility. Only their important prisoners make it to the prison, the others are killed before they get that far."

 **19 June 1986: Len Bias dies from cocaine overdose after being selected 2nd in the NBA draft**

Three golden dragons set down two more bags of volunteers each, mostly Nicaraguan, but Olmayra has a bag full of Africans, and another squad of Assassins, in the jungle west of Battalion 3-16's headquarters.

"That's the last of my group, GM!" Charlie Bucket yells, and the three dragons dive _Between_.

They pop back out over their headquarters near Samoto, Nicaragua, where the last of the force to liberate INDUMIL are staged. The feathered serpents will be with them, because they have the harder task of trying to keep the prisoners alive.

 **23 June 1986: LISTSERV mailing list management software first released**

None of the prisoners want to be relocated, but they at last accept that the Honduran government is likely to disappear them again if they go back now. A few are willing to be sent to Cuba, but most want to stay in Nicaragua, closer to home.

More prosaically, the Guild's supply of U.S. surplus OG-107 uniforms was running low, and the costume designer had come back with something similar but snazzier, since unless they started wearing Nicaraguan uniforms, which would symbolically tie them to the Sandinistas, they had to make their own anyway.

A clothing factory in Masaya produced the first run, and they are being distributed for wear-testing and evaluation.

 **5 July 1986: Statue of Liberty reopened to the public**

"Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With Conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and name

MOTHER OF EXILES. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

'Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!' cries she

With silent lips, 'Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send me these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!'"

Harry finishes reading the poem, rubs his eyes a moment, swallowing. Luna gives him a hug, rubs his face on Harry's shoulder, "The world has punted on the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The U.S., the Soviets, and the Fundies are determined, between them, to make everyone miserable. I think you, also-"

Harry hugs Luna back harder, "The world isn't poor. There is plenty for everyone, but it's all locked up, the rich assholes, the churches, the governments, the asshats who want everyone to be miserable."

"Then, Angharad, let us save the world," Olmayra says, "Hopefully we won't have to impale as many elsewhere as we have in Africa."

"Hopefully," Harry agrees, giving Olmayra a hug. Luna joins in seconds later.

 **1** 2 July 1986: New Zealand decriminalizes consensual sex between men over 16

"So, Argentina and the U.S. provided training and advice for Battalion 3-16. We can't do anything about the U.S. right now, but I managed to obtain a contract to investigate both the Argentine military's involvement with Honduras and the Argentine Disappeared. We're making $10 Argentinian, out of the President's pocket, but we're commissioned to 'Find those responsible, document their crimes for the Argentine courts, and deal with them as you see fit.' I think he thought he was hallucinating, but," Lessa smiles, and it is not a pretty smile.

"In happier news," Harry Crewe speaks up, "The people behind the Nausicaa movie have a new one coming out 2 August. Can I get a lift? Do we want to make a group outing of it?"

 **2 August 1986: Laputa, Castle in the Sky released in Japan**

Only about twenty Assassins want to see Laputa, so Olmayra, Lessa, and Luna grab them up, Lessa in the middle, Olmayra and Luna on either side, everyone holding hands as they walk down the street in front of the headquarter's building, "One," they count aloud, "two," another step, "three," and they dive _Between_ , popping out onto the street in Akihabara, where they drop hands.

They rubberneck while Harry Crewe and Takaya Noriko, his girlfriend and Japanese teacher, leads them to the local train, or densha, "Means electric train, but the Shinkansen is also electric, so," Harry shrugs, "English is worse."

Everyone nods.

A couple train changes later, and they join the line outside a movie theater.

"Omoshiroi cospurei," a man says, and Lessa turns to look.

"Cosupurei ja nai," she answers, "Ore," she pauses a moment, "no heishi kara, seifuku ga kikanakya, mistukemasu nara."

"Almost right," Noriko says.

"Dare des ka," the man, and his friends, who drifted over, start by asking.

Angharad, and she doesn't even notice that she refolded herself, although her audience does, replies once Noriko finished translating, "We're from the Assassin's Guild. We've been mostly been operating in Central America and Africa, but we have some investigation we're doing for the Argentine government."

"Anno Hideaki," he bows, presenting a card. Angharad accepts it, looks it over, then puts it in one of her lower blouse pockets.

"Okada Toshio." Angharad accepts another card.

At this point Harry recognizes the names, and breaks in, "Ano, sumimasen, are you, were you, involved in the Daicon III and IV opening animations?"

 **20 August 1986: Patrick Sherrill shoots 14 postal service coworkers before killing himself**

Buenos Aires wakes to the sight of seventy-six men impaled, still alive, on the lawns of Casa Rosada, with hundreds more, handcuffed together in groups of five, on the sidewalks, and an enormous feathered serpent, black and iridescent green, curled up in front of them.

Within moments, police come running, weapons drawn.

" _I have both the needed evidence, and a copy of our contract,"_ she says, pushing a large file-box toward the policemen, _"These men are responsible for the extra-judicial killings and torture of thousands. It was a pleasure to show the world the way the Assassin's Guild deals with bandits such as these."_

By the time the men are pulled off the stakes, seventy-five are dead, and the last one dies a week later in the hospital.

 **21 August 1986: Lake Nyos disaster kills nearly 2000 in Cameroon**

"Can we evacuate the area before the gas cloud erupts out of the lake?"

"Why would anyone evacuate?" Harry says, looking at the map, "It is unprecedented, there's no way anyone would believe us until it is much too late," he frowns, "We could try scaring them out."

After several hours the League of Dragons abandons the attempt to find a way to save them.

 **6 September 1986: two Abu Nidal kill 22 and wound 6 in an attack on an Istanbul synagogue**

"Fucking fundies," Olmayra sighs, dropping the paper back on the desk. Luna gives her a hug.

Harry reads the article, "Back in a bit," and dives Between.

A few minutes latter he's back, and the headline reads "Two killed by giant animal in Istanbul."

 **7 September 1986: Chilean Dictator Pinochet survives an assassination attempt by FPMR**

Bullets whine, ricocheting off Pinochet's armored Mercedes, and the first rocket strikes, a dud.

The second and third RPGs punch through the front and back windows.

 **9 October 1986: Fox Broadcasting Company formed though Metromedia's acquisition by News Corp**

The Pinochet regime is sorely hurt by his death, but staggers on. FPMR may have a snowball's chance in the election. May.

 **10 October 1986: San Salvador earthquake kills about 1,500 people**

"Push the papers," Lessa says into the telephone, "There's an earthquake in San Salvador." It is 1151, but the rescue team has been ready since 08, and loaded on the Assassin's Guild's three An-12s since 1030. The props have been spinning since 1130.

"You've sent the specifics, right?" the head of Disaster Relief says, remembering the last time the Assassin's Guild sent disaster relief assistance.

"Mailed you the packet last week, so it should be there already. I labeled it 'open on the 10th.'"

"Here it is. Yeah, I'll get this filed. Good luck."

"Thank you. Olmayra and I'll be back in about a week."

They are on the ground in San Salvador within the hour, and have teams looking for survivors within two hours.

They don't find any dragons, but they do rescue several hundred people over the next three days.

 **28 October 1986: Centennial celebration for the dedication of the Statue of Liberty**

Only twelve of them could come to the Statue, since none of them have American documents, and a Nicaraguan passport certainly wouldn't do, and thus they have to dive _Between_ in human-shape, with three passengers each. After the ceremony they troop into the pedestal, and stand around the plaque a moment, re-reading Emma Lazarus's poem, then look at the line going up.

"Do we want to wait in line for hours, or come back another day?" Angharad asks, turning back to her people.

After a little discussion, they decide to wait.

 **29 October 1986: The M25 ring-road around London opens**

"I just realized it's been more than a year since I was in England," Angharad says, then laughs, "Well, this face has never been in England."

"Should we go visit?" Luna asks.

Angharad looks to Olmayra.

Olmayra thinks a moment, then shrugs, "I have some bandit-killing to do, but I can time back for that after some sight-seeing."

"Then let's go. I'll show you around Soho, and the British Museum."

 **3 November 1986: Ash-Shiraa magazine reports that the U.S. Has been secretly selling weapons to Iran to secure the release of American hostages**

Ramoth grabs the fleeing man, and holds him rather gently, _"No, you don't get to run away just yet,"_ she tells him.

He screams, hyperventilating.

" _Later this afternoon, your men raided a village north of here, raped and murdered, cut one young mother's boobs off, and left her baby to starve. You are not leaving this camp alive, or unviolated,"_ She gives him a squeeze, slowing his breathing so he will not pass out. He thrashes and moans, shoving ineffectually at her huge gold fingers, eventually tries to lean down far enough to bite. He cannot reach.

After an hour or so it is the bandit chief's turn, and Ramoth impales him with all due gentleness.

 **21 November 1986: LTC Oliver North, a member of the National Security Council, and his secretary start shredding documents implicating them in the illegal sale of weapons to Iran, and the channeling of the funds to the Contras**

"No Contras this month, either?" Lessa asks Harry Crewe.

"Nope. Nothing. All we have are dead ends, and 'someone said they saw some over there' rumors."

"We were hoping to take the Assassins on a trip to Samoto Canyon, which is supposed to be really pretty," Charlie Bucket says, sliding a few photos across the table, "Just a day trip, nothing extravagant."

"That would be excellent," Luna answers, "We should stay overnight and feed the mosquitos, however."

 **25 November 1986: the U.S. Attorney General announces that profits from covert weapons sales to Iran were illegally diverted to the Contras**

Harry scratches, "Why did we stay to feed the mosquitos?"

"So I would have an excuse to spread itch cream all over Angharad and Olmayra," Luna tells him guilelessly, "Why else?"

"I thought it had to do with sitting around together cuddling," Harry sighs, "That was really nice."

"Yeah, you both need more cuddles, killing bandits is quite stressful, even though they badly need killing."

"Even though we can keep them from doing the things we impaled them for," Harry shakes his head, refolding into Angharad. She pauses, looking at her hand, "I didn't know I could do that."

"You did it while we were in line for Laputa, too," Luna tells her, "I think Anno noticed."

"Oh well," Angharad says, then steps closer, slowly, giving Luna plenty of time to stop her, and wraps her into a hug, bending to tuck her head under Luna's chin.

 **26 November 1986: President Reagan announces the Tower Commission to look into Iran-Contra, and denies involvement in the scandal**

"The old actor is lying, isn't he."

Luna nods against Olmayra's shoulder, "The Tower Commission will eventually lay the blame for Iran-Contra at his feet."

"Can I just bite him? Or impale him?"

"He's an ass, and foolish in a number of ways, but he is spending the Soviet Union into oblivion. The USSR will fall, not with a bang, but with a whimper, over the next few years."

Olmayra pets Luna's hands where they are clasped over her belly.

 **14 December 1986: the** _ **Rutan Voyager**_ **begins its flight around the world, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager**

"That's awesome," Jimmy Russel says, as the _Voyager_ scrapes it's way off the runway, ripping the winglets off the tips of the wings in the process.

"Nine days of fuel is pretty heavy."

"Do you think you could do that?" Olmayra asks Luna.

"I don't like going without sleep for that long," Luna doesn't answer.

 **16 December 1986: 165 anti-government protesters killed in the Kazahk SSR**

"What is firestone?"

"Apatite."

 **20 December 1986: Three African Americans assaulted by a group of white teens in Queens, NY. Michael Griffith is struck and killed by a motorist when he attempts to flee**

Angharad grabs the boy who's trying to flee by his collar, and he, rather comically, stops running only after his feet are quite in front of him, and he falls on his butt.

Her squad has the attackers on the ground, and a medic is seeing to the other victims.

"Now," she says, "You do have a right to walk the streets early in the morning, but picking a fight in a white neighborhood is a bad idea."

"I wasn't picking a fight, we just need some help with the car, and these assholes-"

"Outnumber you a lot. If I hadn't stepped in, you would have kept running, and might have run in front of a car and died."

"I wouldn't have done that!"

"Sure, sure, keep telling yourself that."

 **23 December 1986: the** _ **Rutan Voyager**_ **circumnavigates the globe nonstop, without refueling, in 9 days, 3 minutes, and 44 seconds**

"The last time I played Father Christmas, I stood outside a department store. A gang of kids came over and mugged me," Lessa, Luna, and Olmayra sing, with about twenty Assassins singing along.

Once "Father Christmas," is over, Jimmy Russel starts up with a filk, "Eating things best thrown away, Pious Christians at their pray, hoping they'll get well someday, eating things best thrown away."

Olmayra is trying to figure out if she is offended, but Luna is laughing out loud.

At the end of 1986, Luna is 14, Olmayra is 15, and Harry/Lessa/Angharad is 12.

Log:

Early May 2017: Reading too many Harry Potter fanfic, and thinking about how one cannot,

canonically, be a magical creature animagus. Pernese Dragons are non- magical . . .

Mid May 2017: Thinking about other books that would influence things, checked out a copy of

The Blue Sword and Dragonriders of Pern

17 May 2017: Realized that, while the Harry Potter books are firmly removed from muggle

time, this story isn't. It's all about what Harry's saving people thing would look

like if it got Harry's full support. Hit up wikipedia for more historical context.

27 May 2017: Realized that, after chopping anything Harry wouldn't be paying attention to,

that Olmayra's paying forward, and is interested in all of the disasters . . .

5 June 2017: More.

16 June 2017: More.

18 June 2017: More. Finished 1985 first draft.

20 June 2017: Broke the story into year-long chunks.

21 June 2017: Some more of 1986. Yes, I find the idea of dragon-borne dragoons funny, why are you asking?

26 June 2017: More. Finished 1986 first draft.

28 June 2017: Tiny edits, playing with format.


	3. 1987

Harry Potter and a Warm Night _Between_

Based On J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter

Influenced by many things

History items copied and or paraphrased from Wikipedia

Recommendations for 1987: Firefox, Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise, Star Trek: TNG, Gamera!

 **2 January 1987: The battle of Fada, where 3,000 Chadian soldiers destroyed the Libyan garrison, killing 784 Libyan soldiers and destroying 92 T-55s and 33 BMP-1s**

"So Chad won, and destroyed almost a hundred tanks," Olmayra says, "A hundred tanks would increase the Assassin's combat power, even if T-55s are old and obsolete."

"Dive in, grab tanks, and dive out again?" Angharad asks, looking at the map of Chad.

"Yes," Luna nods, "That would work. We should start well before the battle, and time back repeatedly. Grab the BMPs, too, we can sell them, or give them to our allies."

The pre-dawn darkness fills with the sound of dozens of wings, and the Libyan motor pools empty in minutes.

 **3 January 1987: Aretha Franklin is the first woman inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame**

Harry's Sandinista trained army has grown from a single youth gang of twenty three young men to a mixed-gender force of over three hundred, even if he, or she, depending on which dragon form he was last, Olmayra, and Ruth are still the only dragons. Oliver North just became famous for selling missiles to Iran to fund the Contras in their terror attacks, and refusing to say who had ordered him to do it. Harry is still very tempted to bite an old actor about it.

Olmayra's Local Contact Teams are working well, at least one female Assassin, preferably one of the older women who has one or more children, a security detail, and a translator. Drop them in by dragon-bag or HIND, and listen to what a village needs, not just wants.

 **26 February 1987: The Tower Commission rebukes President Reagan for not controlling his National Security Council staff**

"Another day, another Libyan outpost to raid," Lessa rubs her hands together, "They have a HIND, and a fighter plane. There are at least five hundred Libyan soldiers, so we're going to steal the aircraft, then bomb the place flat. Any questions?"

"Who gets to play Clint Eastwood?"

"We've got a Cuban pilot for the fixed-wing, and Jones will fly the HIND. Gordon should be done with flight school next month. Lister's in HIND school right now, and we need someone to go to Cuba for fixed-wing school once Gordon graduates."

A dozen hands shoot up, "Company commanders make me an OML, and we'll interview for candidates."

 **4 March 1987: President Reagan makes excuses about Iran-Contra**

"No, Angharad," Luna tells her softly, "You shouldn't bite that old actor. With him, the Cold War ends with a whimper, not atomic fire. He starves his people, and backs lots of murderous bastards, but he does bring a peaceful end to the conflict with the Soviet Union."

 **14 March 1987: Gainax's first major project,** **Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise** **is released in Japan**

Dozens of uniformed Assassins crowd pour out onto the platform, then out onto the streets of Tokyo. They settle into line, and wait for the theater to open.

After the movie there is a lively discussion about Shiro's attack on Rakini.

 **21 April 1987: Central Bus Station Bombings in Colombo, Sri Lanka, kill 113**

"I got us a contract with the Sri Lankan government!" Luna bounces in.

"Oh?" Lessa asks, "What did they agree to?"

"Recognizing Tamil as a national language, ending _de jure_ discrimination against Tamils, and paying us in fighter planes and a C-130."

"What are we getting?"

"A couple of Kfirs, three MiG-27s, and four F-7 Skybolts."

"Could be worse."

"Now we need to destroy the Tamil Tigers."

 **17 May 1987:** _USS Stark_ **hit by two Iraqi Exocet missiles, killing 47 Sailors**

A dozen translators, fifty suspects, and they have targets. The Tigers use a cellular structure, but the cells aren't tight enough, and it's almost amazing how intimidating a dragon is.

Particularly, Lessa admits, after a year of public bandit-killing, and their cleanup in Argentina.

The old man they are interrogating is no exception. He is almost scared enough to be fearless, but has enough hope of seeing his home again to talk, babble really, about everything they want to know.

 **22 May 1987: Hashimpura Massacre, where 42 young men were gathered up by the police, taken out of town, shot, and dumped in the local canals**

The firestone bin is full of low-grade apatite, full of inclusions and nowhere near clear. Harry, as a brown dragon, picks up a chunk in his claws, puts it in his mouth, and starts to chew.

His tummy rumbles, protesting, as the rock begins to change into phosphine gas.

A minute later he dives _Between_ , and breathes fire over the camp full of Tigers, who break and run, straight towards the Sri Lankan collecting force.

 **12 June 1987: President Reagan challenges "Tear down this wall" in Berlin**

"We need to send more kids to flight school, we have, now, over twelve planes per pilot," Lessa smiles, "And thirteen helicopters."

Luna nods, "The Cubans say they'll train us five more fixed-wing, Argentina can train 'a couple' of helicopter pilots, Sri Lanka says they could take a couple of each, now that their Tiger problem has been mostly dealt with, Nicaragua will train as many as we'd like, but their training comes out of our budget-"

"Ouch," Olmayra says, "I have an idea about our budget."

"Oh?"

"We need money, and Nicaragua can't afford to save Africa from herself. I have a dumb plan, but it might work."

"What's your dumb plan?" Luna asks.

Lessa nods.

"Africa is full of little countries laid out by Europeans looking at a map, and most of them can't afford a proper army, much less the border conflicts they keep getting into. We offer to provide security services for one percent of their gross tax revenue, and help them negotiate borders they won't fight over."

"And get paid for impaling bandits all over the continent."

"And get paid for impaling bandits."

"Sliding scale payments, one percent to start, growing as the country's economy does, one percent more for us for every two percent for the country to the ten percent mark. When their gross tax revenue is 120% larger, we get ten percent," Lessa says, "And then we don't have to worry nearly as much about money."

 **28 June 1987: Iraqi warplanes drop mustard gas on the Iranian town of Sardasht**

The numberless, insignia-less, olive-drab Skybolt is nearly at it's stall speed, and Ramoth is pushing herself hard, but she grabs it and dives _Between_. They dive from 30,000 feet, the Skybolt much faster than the dragon.

Ramoth smiles, spotting the Iraqi planes, still 15,000 feet below, and the Skybolt opens with one, then the other, PL-2, each of which hit separate targets at the back of the Iraqi formation. A moment later Gordon starts firing rockets, one pod per target, as the range drops. The Iraqis are finally noticing the attack, and are breaking to either side. Four bursts from the guns exhaust the ammo, and down two more planes. Gordon pitches up, and burns for altitude, killing the afterburner after a few seconds, then throttling back as she pulls even with Ramoth.

Ramoth grabs the Skybolt and dives _Between_.

 **15 July 1987: Martial Law ends in Taiwan after 38 years**

Angharad looks over the ranks of her battalion, four infantry companies, an air squadron, and five support companies, over a thousand under her employ, fed, cared for, skilled, tactically and technically proficient. They are out of Contras to fight, but still have some bandits in Central America, and are still getting paid. Three nations in Africa, Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi, are already paying for their services, and Malawi, Senegambia, and Liberia are negotiating.

"Today, we celebrate. We have run out of Contras. We haven't seen any Contra group larger than a five-man cell in months, and unless more of them show up, we will be out of work in Nicaragua in a year, when our contract runs out. But today we eat, drink, and have fun, because tomorrow we may be fighting again."

 **31 July 1987: 400 pilgrims killed in clashes between Iranian pilgrims and Saudi security forces in Mecca**

"It is really simple, you need to stop being an asshole, or thousands of people are going to die."

President Bagaza stares at Luna like he can't believe what she just said.

"You did translate that right, didn't you?" Angharad asks Michaels, their French translator.

"Yes, I didn't try to soften it at all."

"You will be deposed within a year, and all of the violence and turmoil you have been suppressing for a decade will come out. There will be massacres of Tutsi and Hutu, and your country will sink to being one of the poorest and unhappiest in the world. You hired us to find you a new answer, to help your country prosper, but you need to do your part as well."

"How can I do that?" he asks, "If I let up on the Catholics I look weak, if I let up on the Hutu they'll depose me."

"That is what we are here for. You stop being an asshole, and we'll keep the peace until you stop paying us. Establish real democracy, or at least something that isn't so blatantly fraudulent as the '84 election."

He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, "Let us try."

 **9 August 1987: Hoddle Street Massacre in Victoria, Australia kills 7 and injures 19**

"For 1% of your tax revenue, you get the military, paramilitary, and policy support of the Assassin's Guild. We are the best military force in Africa, and we're getting better all the time."

"One percent from Senegal, The Gambia, what?"

"One percent from Senegambia. Your two countries are too small to do well separately, and your borders get even bigger that way. You can take as long as you want to unify your external laws, but you will need to come up with unified import/export and defense policies."

"I don't know if I like that," the Senegalese representative says, Michaels translating, "But we will try."

 **14 August 1987: Australian police raid on Kai Lama, rescuing Sarah Hamilton-Byrne's 13 adopted siblings from durance vile**

President Doe is justifiably uneasy with the Assassin's Guild's demands, "So I have to let my enemies prosper, work against my allies, and allow the rabble to control the country?"

"Yes, you do," Luna says, "Or you can wait for the Coup that will remove you from power, and likely leave you in a shallow grave somewhere. No one is forcing you to work with us."

 **19 August 1987: Hungerford Massacre kills 16**

"We've been approached by the Congo," Olmayra looks up from the letter, "Nguesso can see the writing on the wall, it seems, and wants us to help shepherd him through Democratization."

 **31 August 1987: Michael Jackson releases** _Bad_

Lessa watches her volunteers train, Africans of various sorts, Americans from many nations, and wonders how her organizational culture will handle growing so rapidly. She has as many people in training right now as she does in her battalion.

 **13 September 1987: Scavengers open a radiation source found in an abandoned Brazilian hospital, causing the worst ever urban radiation accident**

A force of at least three hundred Contra are attempting to infiltrate deep into Nicaragua. They are fording the Rio Coco when the Assassins intercept them.

Without the League of Dragons it would have been a rout. With the League six CIA advisors are captured.

 **28 September 1987: Star Trek: The Next Generation premieres**

"Encounter at Farpoint" is playing on repeat in the chow halls, and all of the Assassins are under orders to watch it.

 **11 October 1987: the first National Coming Out Day**

"We get to keep any Somali matériel we capture, and they have collected up some money." Lessa says, "The cash payment wouldn't even cover fuel to get conventional forces here," a shake of shoulder-length hair around her twelve year old neck, then she unfolds into a gold dragon, _"But we are not conventional, are we?"_

"We are not," Luna affirms, turning to address the assembled companies, "The war here will get worse, and it is already bad. By 1991, when the clans will finally depose Siad Barre, things will be so bad that the country will not recover, even with the United States trying to help in 1993. The religious fundamentalists, pirates, and other criminals will have reduced a poor country to a collection of warlords terrorizing everyone who cannot escape.

"We will stop that. Harry and I have the easy part, catch Siad and kill him. You have the harder task, of stopping the Red Berets, and keeping the remnants of Siad's government under control while we try to stabilize the country enough that it doesn't become a feast for crows anyway."

Harry Crewe, Alpha company commander, turns to the others, "Speeches over, we roll in half an hour, get moving!"

Siad Barre's house is nice, much nicer than any of it's neighbors, and surrounded by both armed guards and weapon's emplacements. Harry and Luna, folded into human shape, look through a window into an empty room, checking one more time, then, with a nod to each other, dive _Between_. The door out of the storeroom is locked, but Luna takes care of it quietly. Siad Barre himself is an old man, weakened by the injuries suffered when his limo hit a bus in 1986. _"He does look rather like Emperor Palpatine, doesn't he?"_ Luna asks.

 _"He does."_

They dive _Between_ with him, drop him, gasping and a little grey, with their S2, American LTC (Ret) Hannibal Smith (no relation, he said, to the member of the television show A-Team who's name he shared) for interrogation.

 **19 October 1987: Black Monday, global stock markets fall sharply**

Assassins are delivering food aid throughout Somalia, and translators are helping spread the news of Siad Barre's deposition. Local contact teams are talking to the women, to see what else is needed.

 **18 November 1987: King's Cross fire on the London Underground kills 31 and injures 100**

The Assassins dig their five-hundredth well, and someone puts up a sign, both in English and, because this well is in Kenya, Swahili.

They march order the drilling machine, folding down the boom, then in the tripod-legs, and make sure the step-sized augers are packed away. Subteniente MacNamera calls for pickup.

A soldado climbs down the ladder built into the sides of the 30 inch inside diameter concrete pipe sections, making a final check that the sections are joined together, the ladder is straight, and the water is deep enough for a bucket at the bottom. She climbs back out and gives a thumbs up.

The couple of spare pipe sections are strapped to the pallet, and the work crew gathers by their dragon-bag, one of the modern semi-rigid inflatable models, waiting for pickup.

Ramoth pops out of _Between_ , frigid air wafting over the village, and grabs the drilling machine by the handles, and dives _Between_ with it. A minute later, she's back, and collects the pallets of unused building materials.

Another cold breeze, and Ramoth folds into Lessa. Teniente Walsh has the village headman, and most of the rest of the people, gathered.

"I thank you for this chance," Lessa says in well-practiced Swahili, because even after more than a year she isn't fully fluent, "To help you help yourselves, to help you with something you could have done, but it would have taken you longer. When you need us, ask, and we will be here."

She pulls an iridescent glass bubble, in a nice metal box with a glass front, secured in velvet, "If you need military help, immediately, break this, and we will be here." The headman accepts the box.

Lessa and the work crew accept hugs, and stay for afternoon tea, then the crew straps in in the dragon-bag, and Ramoth dives _Between_ with them.

 **18 November 1987: House and Senate panels release reports charging President Reagan with ultimate responsibility for Iran-Contra**

Ramoth pops out of Between over the Assassin's Nicaraguan headquarters, having dropped the work crew at their Somali compound.

She folds into Angharad, and goes looking for Luna.

 **20 December 1987: MV Doña Paz, a ferry with at least 2,000 more passengers than on the manifest, strikes MT Vector, a petrochemical tanker full of gasoline and other flammables. Final estimates are 4,386 fatalities and 24 survivors.**

Luna, pops out of _Between_ into the late evening warmth, unfolds into Gamera-shape, and belly-flops into the sea near the tanker she's looking for. She double-checks it's name, then takes it's nose in a gentle hand, slowing it to a complete stop without jarring it unduly. _"You really should watch where you are going,"_ she tells them in Spanish, then swims away.

The Doña Paz doesn't notice it's escort, and docks safely in Manila. Luna puts her hands on the concrete pier, lifting her head out of the water, _"You need to document your passengers better, and have evacuation drills,"_ she tells everyone gathered in the lightening pre-dawn twilight, _"More than four thousand dead, more than half not on the manifests, it would have been very sad, and might have been the end of a company."_

She pushes off the pier and swims away.

 **23 December 1987: Doña Paz collision makes the New York Times.**

Luna drops the paper, and dives Between. She is back a minute later, tired, and gathers Angharad into a hug, "I hope I didn't just set up a worse disaster."

Angharad looks at the paper on the table, even though she knows the article that prompted Luna's actions won't be there anymore. "Gamera saves Philippine Passenger Ferry" is the new headline. She reads the article, stroking Luna's arms where they are wrapped around her. "It looks like the ferry company is pushing for increased safety enforcement, and is changing their manifesting procedures."

"That's good."

31 December 1987: Luna is still 15. Olmayra is 16. Harry/Lessa/Angharad is 14.

Log:

Early May 2017: Reading too many Harry Potter fanfic, and thinking about how one cannot,

canonically, be a magical creature animagus. Pernese Dragons are non- magical . . .

Mid May 2017: Thinking about other books that would influence things, checked out a copy of

The Blue Sword and Dragonriders of Pern

17 May 2017: Realized that, while the Harry Potter books are firmly removed from muggle

time, this story isn't. It's all about what Harry's saving people thing would look

like if it got Harry's full support. Hit up wikipedia for more historical context.

27 May 2017: Realized that, after chopping anything Harry wouldn't be paying attention to,

that Olmayra's paying forward, and is interested in all of the disasters . . .

5 June 2017: More.

16 June 2017: More.

18 June 2017: More. Finished 1985 first draft.

28 June 2017: More, Finished 1987 first draft.


	4. 1988

Harry Potter and a Warm Night _Between_

Based On J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter

Influenced by many things

History items copied and or paraphrased from Wikipedia

Recommendations for 1988:

Hustler Magazine V. Falwell  
k.d. lang, "Rose Garden"  
Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack  
Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam  
Grave of the Fireflies  
My Neighbor Totoro  
Warren Zevon, "Lawyers, Guns, and Money"  
Bubblegum Crisis: "Tinsel City Rhapsody," "Revenge Road," "Moonlight Rambler"  
Star Trek: The Next Generation  
S.M. Stirling, Snowbrother  
"Frank Mills" Hair: Original Broadway Cast  
"Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation" Tom Paxton  
Oingo Boingo, "Dead Man's Party"  
Woody Guthrie, "Miss Pavlichenko"  
RUN-DMC, "Christmas in Hollis"

 **15 January 1988: Israeli police and Palestinian protestors clash at the Dome of the Rock, several police and at least 70 protestors injured**

"Here," Luna hands Angharad a box.

Angharad accepts the gift, for the smallish box is wrapped in a page of the previous day's newspaper, and has a bow tied with a green ribbon, and asks, "Why the present?"

"You're 15 today, so you need a good present," Luna says, smiling, standing closer than normal.

"Really?" Angharad smiles back, "I'd not kept track," she grabs Luna's hand, and heads for her office.

Luna props herself against the desk, and Angharad drops down in her chair, carefully untying the ribbon before slitting the tape with her fingernails.

Luna laughs, "I wrapped that in newspaper so you could rip it off."

"I haven't had so many presents that I want to rush it," Angharad says, shifting the box off to the side while she folds the wrapping paper back up, "Thank you, you know," she goes silent as she pulls the box back in front of herself, "I like," she pauses, running her hands over the velvet-covered box, a brilliant emerald green, smaller than a cigar box, "I appreciate that you know when my birthday is."

"You are important to me, of course I know when your birthday is, as well as when it should be," Luna smiles, ruffles Angharad's hair, "So I can get you more presents."

Angharad blinks, a little shiny-eyed, and lifts the lid of the box. Inside is a pair of drop-style earrings and a pendant, brilliant green stones wrapped in silver metal, accented by a spray of smaller clear stones each, the pendant having a blue and a brown stone set to either side of the green one. The big stones aren't very big, oval, maybe eight millimeters on their long sides, "These are pretty," she says.

"Gem grade Apatite, set in platinum, accented by diamonds," Luna shrugs, "I thought the green would go well with your eyes."

Angharad hesitates a moment, then reaches up to cup Luna's cheek in her hand.

Luna leans into the touch, the corners of her lips curving up even further.

Angharad pulls her closer as she leans up and in.

Their lips meet, and Angharad's eyes drift closed as her free hand comes to rest on Luna's hip.

 **3 February 1988: the U.S. House of Representatives rejects President Reagan's request for $36.5 million to support the Contras**

Harry's hair, he's found, is just the wrong length. It is long enough to get in his face, but not long enough to tuck behind his ears. He could cheat, and just fold into a shape with longer hair, but then he'd have to remember that every time until he gave up or got used to it, or he could continue to let it grow on it's own, and get used to it gradually, or he could cut it back to where he had it before, almost as long and fluffy as k.d. lang.

He really likes having Luna play with his hair, however. A moment later, he dives _Between_ to his office, and digs in his drawer full of present wrappings, finding, right on top, a length of green ribbon. He pulls his hair back, and ties the ribbon in a big bow over the top of his head and under his hair in the back. He walks down the hall to the latrine, and looks in the mirror, "Yeah, the bow's a bit much for a boy," he tells his reflection, and slides it to the left until the bow is at the back of his neck, under his hair, mostly, "Much better."

Luna, as hoped, tells him it looks nice.

 **17 February 1988: Oshakati Bomb Blast in South West Africa (Namibia) kills 27, injures 70**

"Are we doing anything about South Africa?" Angharad asks Olmayra, setting the paper down on the table.

"No, not right now. Luna says Apartheid will fall soon, and South West Africa will become Namibia. We're still impaling bandits by the dozens. We haven't caught Joseph Kony yet, but we have pretty much wiped out the LRA. Things are actually pretty good in South Africa, and they are going to get better."

Angharad nods, "It's just sad when people bombing banks is 'Pretty good.'"

Olmayra gives her a hug.

 **24 February 1988: SCOTUS protects the right of parody in Hustler v. Falwell**

"Read this," Luna says, dropping a girly mag in Harry's lap, open to an ad, Jerry Falwell's picture on the left, a bottle of Campari on the left, and a whole lot of funny lies in the middle. And a flat claim of "ad parody - not to be taken seriously" in small print at the bottom.

"Yes?

"The U.S. Supreme Court just affirmed that it is a parody of a public figure, and as such is protected by their first amendment."

"Just when you decide they're all asshole, they go and admit the Contras have lost and funny things are funny," Harry gently cups the back of Luna's head, and leans up. Luna obliges.

 **13 March 1988: Seikan Tunnel between Honshu and Hokkaido opens**

"I beg your pa~rdon," Lessa sings, reading logistics reports, glad, still, at the building cash reserve, that they can afford to fly the HINDs they've acquired over the last couple years, that they can actually buy PL-2s for the F-7s, "I never promised you a rose garden, along with the sunshine, there's gonna be a little rain sometime."

"I could promise you things like big diamond rings, but you don't find roses growing on stalks of clover," and the Kfirs, with their stupid-spendy Sidewinders, and nearly as bad Pythons.

Training is worse, just because they are growing so fast, "I could promise you the moon, but if that's what it takes I'd just as soon let you go," having doubled in size again over the last six months.

 **14 March 1988:** **Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack** **released in Japan**

The Assassin's anime fen, now numbering more than a hundred, climb out of their dragon-bags in Koganei park.

Luna, Angharad, and Olmayra fold into human shape. Like the rest of the Assassins, they are wearing civilian clothes, Luna a pale blue blouse and darker blue ankle-length crepe skirt, Angharad an emerald green v-neck sweater, to show off her firestone necklace, and black slacks, and Olmayra, annoyed by male attention the last time she was in Japan, is a boy, in jeans and a black t-shirt.

Three Assassins, not anime fen, but getting extra pay for the inconvenience, stay to guard the dragon-bags.

Angharad, her Japanese much improved, greets Anno and the Gainax delegation.

 **16 March 1988: Halabja chemical attack in Iraq**

"We need to go, they're prepping the bombs right now, we need to steal them, Saddam is in the palace to the south of Adhamiyah, tonight's the night, let's go!" Luna babbles, pulling Harry from, a grope to check, his bed.

"What's up?"

"They will be sortieing jets with chemical weapons, sarin, cyanide, and mustard gas, against a Kurdish Iraqi town the Iranians took recently."

"Who?" Harry asks, then clarifies, "Who's attacking with poison gas?"

"The Iraqi government, which mostly means Saddam Hussein," Luna says.

"What are we going to do about it?"

"Destroy all the fighter planes on Al Asad airbase, steal a bunch of poison gas bombs, and drop them on the palace Saddam is in."

Harry nods, following Luna to the dragon hangar, and they both unfold into great bronze dragons, lift the lid on the firestone bin, and start grinding a mouthful each of the soft sedimentary rocks between their teeth, feeling the familiar gurgle in their tummies as phosphine gas begins to form.

A moment later they pop out of _Between_ , warm desert air around them, and a large airbase beneath them, MiG and Mirage fighters already on the aprons by the runways, pilots, ordinance techs, fuelers, and mechanics running about purposefully.

Seconds later flames are washing among them, first uniforms and fuel hoses catching, then airmen, planes and fuel trucks. As the two dragons come up the other apron, the poison gas bombs start cooking off, and the medical and fire teams stop advancing, backing away from the clouds, some calling higher, others just turning around outright. After the pass down the second apron Harry asks Luna, _"Good enough?"_

 _"Grab as many bombs as you can carry,"_ Luna affirms, grabbing up a trailer full of bombs in each of his four taloned hands. Harry does the same, and follows Luna _Between_ to a barren stretch of desert.

Luna lands first, setting down her bombs, circling until Harry's hands are empty, then folding into a human.

"You're a boy this time," Harry says, copying Luna in pulling the red-labeled pins, some of which say 'Remove Before Flight' in English, the others probably saying the same thing in Russian and Arabic.

"I have a tummy full of firestone," Luna says, "Probably safer this way."

They unfold, Remove Before Flight ribbons blowing in the wind of their liftoff, catch up their bombs, and dive _Between_ , appearing low over the Tigris River, well below the flak already going up all around, and Harry follows Luna, dropping his bomb carts slightly after he pulls up, and they backwing, slowing, watching the bombs plunge and scatter, clouds of different colored smoke indicating that at least some of the bombs exploded, and people start trying to flee the palace buildings, which are engulfed in smoke and a little flame.

A group of men, mostly soldiers, try to hustle a man in a gas mask to a car. Luna breaks off, back over the Tigris, and returns with a motor scooter in one hand, which he throws, side-arm, smashing several of the bodyguards and crushing the man in the gas mask between the crumpled car door and the car. After a moment Harry can tell he's not breathing, and Luna touches his hand.

*~ aWNB ~*

Home again, the two of them shudder, gasp, and heave, puking up disgusting, wet, slimy piles of firestone ash. Harry feels around in his mouth to make sure he got it all out, flicking bits of depleted rock out with his tongue and talons, A drink from the big trough, a swish, another feel around with his tongue, Luna doing much the same on the other side of the trough, and he folds into human girl form, pleased to note she managed to fold into her girl clothes, and has them on straight. She smiles up at Luna, who is still taller than even her Angharad form, although it is getting closer, "Shall we go get drunk? The older kids recommend it after a mission like that," Angharad holds out a hand, "And we've already puked."

Luna nods, "With kisses and groping?"

Angharad laughs, "Only if you want too." She snuggles close once Luna takes her hand, and they go in search of a bottle.

"This stuff is a very pretty blue," Angharad says, grabbing up a square bottle from the officer's alcohol stash, "Like Romulan Ale."

"That's supposed to be a not-bad gin," Luna nods, "Should be good enough."

They match numbers in the booze logbook, print, sign, and date, then walk off with their booty.

"I think," Angharad says carefully, "This shit's worse than beer."

Luna pulls Angharad a little closer with one arm, and takes the glass in her free hand, "I think you're right," she takes another drink anyway, "This stuff's really yucky."

Angharad accepts the glass back, "We've already iced it," she takes a drink, passes the glass, "Tonic water is awful all by itself, much less mixed with this," she frowns, turning into Luna's shoulder, mutters into her neck, "What is it with killing people and self-poisoning?"

"Alcohol loosens inhibitions, which makes it easier to talk about what we just did," She kisses Angharad's forehead before pressing her cheek against it, "And it blurs the memories, a little, or a lot, which can help with the trauma of war."

"I think," Angharad twists to kiss the underside of Luna's jaw, "Being in charge of things, being in control, being the fucking badass of the battlefield helps with that a lot," she takes the glass, takes a swig, "Yuck. As does leaving all the hard and scary parts to other people," she twists a little more, so she's sideways in Luna's lap, and kisses her on the lips, pulls back, "We are never stuck on the defense, waiting for an attack, wondering if that shriek of incoming fire has our name on it, if we're gonna die today. We're out in front, having chosen the battlefield, and our targets, and we know that all the bastards we burned alive today, all of the soldiers we gassed, Saddam and his bodyguards, they were going to do close enough to the same to three to ten thousand more. The wind was still, so we probably didn't kill too many people on either side of the Tigris," Angharad offers the glass to Luna, who shakes her head.

Angharad sways to the sink, dumps the last half-inch or so of blue liquid down, and refills the glass with water, setting it on the table. The lid is screwed tight, and the bottle goes in the fridge, next to the seven-year scotch, the twelve-year bourbon, and four bottles of German beer. "We look like alcoholics."

Luna laughs, hugging Angharad from behind before taking the fridge door from her hand and closing it, "We'd have to actually finish our booze for that. Mostly we collect it."

"But it's so yucky," Angharad whines, turning in Luna's arms, "We'll share it out next time we have an officer party."

"A ball," Luna corrects, "We can donate it for the grog, and have dancing and food for everyone."

They cuddle into bed, sharing a couple glasses of water, and eventually fall asleep after a little bit of groping.

 **16 March 1988: LTC Oliver North and VADM John Poindexter indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the U.S.**

"Couldn't happen to a nicer guy," Lessa waves at the TV over lunch chow, "I hope he rots in jail."

"They'll fuck up the trial, and he'll be out on a technicality in a couple years," Luna tells her, playing with the shorter girl's hair, stroking the green ribbon holding it back.

"Ah well," Lessa sighs, "Will he at least be in jail a while?"

 **16 March 1988: Milltown Cemetery attack 3 dead, 70 wounded during an IRA funeral**

"Now it's time to save a dragon," Luna says, catching up Harry's hand. He nods, walks them over to the Range Safety Officer.

"Pedro," he greets Teniente Espinoza, one of their Honduran recruits, "We're going to go run some errands, let Jim," Capitán Jim Croce, the new Bravo company commander, "Know we've left."

"Will do, GM."

*~ aWNB ~*

"Where are we going to find our dragon? And do we need anything?"

"Just ourselves, and it's a when as much as a where," Luna shares the positions of the stars, framed by stone in a bathroom window, and with a squeeze of their hands they dive _Between_.

They pop out into frigid air, a young woman screaming, and a huge wooden club being waved around by a grey-skinned humanoid. Harry glances around the room, even as a blue he'd be too big for this room, and heads toward the screams.

Luna unfolds into Ruth, the tiny white dragon still overwhelming in the confined space, and wraps his jaws around the attacker's throat, jerking the creature sideways off its feet. He puts one hand on the thing's club hand, the other on its chest, and jerks his head firmly, severing its spine moments before ripping its head off.

Harry has found a scared girl, maybe as old as he is, and is trying to calm her as Ruth spits out the creature's head, making spitting and gargling noises as he tries to use the sputtering water flow from the broken sinks to wash out the taste and black blood.

"What is your name?" Harry asks, sweeping some of the girl's bushy brown hair from her face.

She whimpers a little and pulls back further against the wall, hitting her head with a solid **Thump**.

Harry refolds into a girl form, and tries again, "What is your name?"

"How . . . " the girl starts, "How did you do that?" she reaches out, brushes Lessa's cheek with her fingers.

"I'm a dragon," Lessa stands, catching the girl's hand, pulling her to her feet, "Luna?"

"Trolls taste bad," Luna steps over, scrubbing her wet, almost blood-free, face with her hands, "I thought they should, but there is a difference between thinking and knowing."

"Do you want me to bite the next troll?"

"Please," Luna gives Lessa a quick hug, then turns to the girl, "Hermione Granger," her warm smile widens to a grin, "Come with us if you want to live."

Hermione takes a deep breath, nods, and grabs Luna's hand, "Let's go."

 **17-20 March 1988: Battle of Afabet in Eritrea**

"The Assassin's Guild is a mercenary company, well, more brigade now, and the League of Dragons, we're more like freelance police. Somalia isn't paying much, Eritrea can't, but, and the benefits of intervening are really small," Lessa looks at the newspaper on the desk, under the large-scale map of the horn of Africa, "Shit's bad all over, and,' she shakes her head, "Let's go flying."

Hermione shakes her head, "I don't like brooms."

"What do brooms . . . " Lessa nods, "Luna said her mom is a witch, but really? Flying brooms?"

"Yes," Hermione nods, "How do you fly?"

"In dragon shape. You have read The Dragonriders of Pern, right?"

"No."

Lessa sighs, "Then it may be a little more difficult for you to unfold, but Olmayra did it on the first try." She led the way out into the warm afternoon, into the shade of the date palms planted around Guild headquarters on the outskirts of Mogadishu. "Dragons, Pernese dragons, were genetically engineered from fire lizards, long ago, and like fire lizards come in colors, blues, browns, and bronzes are male, greens and golds are female, and all are hatched from the same parents. You, like me, like Luna, like Olmayra, are a dragon, capable of diving _Between_ to anywhere, anywhen, you want to go and can hold your breath long enough to get to." Harry steps back, and unfolds into a great gold dragon, _"I call this form Ramoth, after the gold from Dragonflight,"_ she hunkers down, offering an arm, _"Come up, get a closer look."_

Hermione climbs up, paying special attention to Ramoth's iridescent faceted eyes, the jointing of her wings, the sinuous curve of her neck, then climbs down, takes a deep breath, and unfolds.

Gold Hermione is a little smaller than Ramoth, and she takes a moment to look at her taloned hands, brush her face against her wing membranes, then turns to Ramoth, _"How do we fly?"_

 **29 March 1988: ANC representative Dulcie September assassinated outside her office in Paris**

"Dulcie was a soft target, but we need to rescue her, and having her on the payroll would be helpful, I think," Olmayra says,

"Are we going to impale her killer?" Hermione asks.

"You haven't impaled anyone yet, have you?" Olmayra asks.

 **4 April 1988: Governor Evan Mecham of Arizona convicted in his impeachment trial and removed from office**

Hermione, in girl-form, is biting her hand while watching Harry, Angharad, since he's a girl with green eyes right now, and Luna indulge in a very public display of affection. The older girls are sitting very close together, and sparing half their attention for each other, and the other half for what's going on on the TV.

Gundam Zeta is playing on the chow-hall VCR, and the boy? Camiyu, is fighting with the blue-haired girl, Murasame? who he was on a date or something with just a little bit before, but has a double-sized giant robot, and half the watchers are yelling advice at the TV, and the other half are telling them to shut up so they can hear Capitán Crewe, who's translating. Angharad has her face buried in Luna's neck, Hermione can hear her whimper, and Luna is stroking her hair, murmuring softly, "I know, this will end badly. You don't need to watch it, if you don't want to."

"Can we pay Tomino to make a version where Camille shanghais her, and they are happy together?"

"I don't think Tomino likes happy endings."

"It doesn't have to be a happy ending, but a happy middle and dying together at the end," Angharad tells Luna's neck, hugging her tightly, "That'd be a lot better than what I expect."

"What do you expect?"

"He dies, she dies, everybody dies."

"It's worse than that."

"Oh," Angharad says in a small voice, then climbs into Luna's lap, slouching down between her thighs, and wrapping Luna's hands around her belly.

"Skootch down a bit more," Luna tells her, then rests her chin on the top of Angharad's head.

 **10 April 1988: Ojhiri Camp in Pakistan suffers an ammo dump explosion, killing more than 93 and wounding another 1,100**

"I think we're going shopping!" Luna exclaims happily, setting the report down.

"What do you mean," Hermione asks, looking appalled at the death toll from the accident.

"The more of their ammo we steal, the fewer people it will kill when the ammo dump goes up," Lessa explains, "We'll bring in," she pauses a moment, "Forty, that's ten for each of us, and just ransack the place. If it really is a supply dump for the Afghan Mujahideen they might have good stuff like Stinger missiles or TOWs."

Olmayra heads towards the door, "I'm grabbing my squad."

 **14 April 1988: USSR commits to withdrawal from Afghanistan**

"Char's Counterattack is still in theaters, if you want to see it. The fight scenes are awesome," Olmayra tells Hermione, "Grave of the Fireflies, which should be awesome and sad, is coming out Saturday."

"Why should it be awesome?"

"Because it's by Studio Ghibli, the same people who did Nausicaa and Laputa."

"And sad?"

"Because the book is about a couple of kids starving to death at the end of World War Two."

Hermione leans back against the wall to think.

 **16 April 1988: Israeli commandos kill Abu Jihad of the PLO at his home in Tunis**

The anime-fen make a boisterous group on the way to see Grave of the Fireflies, and a less boisterous group on the way home.

Totoro cheers everyone, even Hermione, back up again.

 **16 April 1988: Italy's Red Brigades terrorists kill Senator Roberto Rufili**

Capitán Harry Crewe, representing the Assassin's Guild, finally gets to talk to the Iranian government about claiming Alamut.

It doesn't go well, until he starts offering money. Lots of money.

 **18 April 1988: US Navy retaliates for Iranian attack on the frigate** _ **USS Samuel B. Roberts**_ **, striking Iranian oil platforms and naval vessels**

"I'm an innocent bystander, and somehow I got stuck," Lessa is singing, "between a rock and a hard place, and I'm down on my luck."

Hermione turns to Luna, who's also listening, but reading a fairly thick book, "Does she do this often?"

"Lessa sings," Luna says, then goes quiet for a moment, "Angharad likes hugs, and Harry hides."

"Send lawyers, guns, and money, someone get me out of this," Lessa continues the song.

"Are they separate people?"

"No, just different ways of interacting with the world."

 **4 May 1988: PEPCON plant fire and explosions in Henderson, NV**

Hermione screws up her courage, "Gryffindors go forward," she says under her breath, and steps up to Angharad, "May I have a hug?"

"Sure," Angharad half-shrugs as she answers.

Hermione wraps her arms about the taller girl. Angharad squeezes her back, then pets her hair with one hand, "What's up?"

"I was just wondering something about myself," Hermione answers.

"Oh?" Angharad asks her, then continues after a minute, "Did you figure it out?"

"Maybe."

 **16 May 1988: U.S. Surgeon General reports that nicotine is addictive**

"Another one for the books," Hermione says, "Tobacco is addictive. Wow."

"Think about how long the tobacco companies have been trying to keep people from believing that. It is a big thing," Luna tells her, "Are you feeling better?"

Hermione nods, shading a little green, "I'd prefer if I never need to impale anyone ever again."

"I'd prefer that, too, since it would mean the world was looking after itself, finally."

 **16 May 1988: SCOTUS rules that a search warrant is not need for discarded trash in California v. Greenwood**

Capitán Crewe slides the LaserDisc from its jacket, and feeds the album-sized optical disk into the player.

"YOUMEX Presents," appears on the screen, then demolition explosions, helicopters noises, a huge conical building, sirens, then the instrumentals transition into a woman in a blonde wig singing "Konya wa Hurricane" as a blue robot, a boomer, and the AD Police proceed to make a mess of Tokyo.

 **11 June 1988: the GNU General Public License named**

Olmayra sets down the bag full of Assassins, and dives _Between_ for the bag of Volunteers, followed by the pallet of consumables, and finally the drilling rig, setting it down as the sun peeks over the horizon.

She repeats the process three times, setting out well-drilling rigs.

After breakfast, she starts on a part she likes better, because it has more interaction with the people who benefit.

The livestock are already in the transport cage, protected from the sight and smell of a dragon. Six Assassins are strapped into their seats at the top, under the roll cage. Olmayra snatches the cage up by the handles, and dives _Between_ with it.

They spend the morning distributing young cattle and goats, and then much of the afternoon buying up this year's yearlings from villagers who have extra.

Once the transport cage is full, Olmayra takes it back to the Assassin's Somali base. Assassin veterinarians will check over the new animals, and another six Assassins will re-load the cage with animals coming out of quarantine and help distribute them tomorrow.

After lunch, Olmayra dives _Between_ , to pick up the three drilling crews who had finished work, the fourth crew she set out two days ago had finished early, and been picked up yesterday.

She has a bag of Volunteers in her hands when the call comes in, "We have a bandit gang with shoulder-launched anti-air missiles, we need dragon support," from one of their HIND pilots. She sets them down a little roughly at the Somali base, and dives _Between_ to headquarters.

Three days of fire and maneuver eradicates the state-sponsored bandits, secure a pile of interesting intelligence,

and capture a pile of mostly-Soviet materiel.

 **14 June 1988: The Storm Creek fire starts, eventually burning over 750,000 acres in Yellowstone National Park**

Olmayra slumps in her chair, watching Star Trek, feeling tired and discouraged, because she's been killing bandits in Africa for, she thinks a moment, years, it must have been, with all the Timing she's done, and there are still more.

"You look like I feel," Hermione, who'd helped with the bandits over the last few days, says, slumping onto the arm of Olmayra's chair, "Hug?"

"Please," Olmayra suits deed to word, and gathers the younger, slighter girl into her lap.

 **23 June 1988: James Hansen testifies to the U.S. Senate that man-made global warming has begun**

Hermione looks again, surprised to see Angharad's necklace and earrings, "Why don't you wear those more often? They suit you."

"Because the colored stones are apatite, firestone. Soft, vulnerable to even weak acids, and they break easily. Not the best for common wear, but they are very appropriate for a dragon's jewelry," she laughs, "I wear the ribbon she wrapped them with more often," she touches the green ribbon holding her hair back, Alice-style, that she, and he, literally wears every day.

"It is very pretty," Hermione agrees, even if she doesn't quite thinks it works when he's a boy.

"What do you like to wear?" Angharad waves her calf-length emerald green wool skirt, which she thinks goes well with the with the green v-neck sweater she'd worn the last time she was in civilian clothes, "I haven't seen you in anything besides your school and Assassin's uniforms."

"I don't know," Hermione flops down on a chair opposite Angharad, "I haven't been shopping because I'm shooting up like a weed, I've grown more over the last few months than I did all of last year, and I like my uniform," she shakes one of her blouse-pockets, which rattles, "I never really carried much before, but now I see why boys like pockets. I like pockets," she sighs, "And girl-clothes have a dearth of pockets, and it's just easier to wear my uniform than try to figure something else out to wear."

"You can have pockets added," Angharad says, "But that easy thing is why I wear my uniform almost all the time."

"Maybe we, the dragons, could go clothes shopping?"

"Or we could have Luna talk to the costume designer, we do need League of Dragon's uniforms."

"Or both."

 **24 June 1988: Section 28 is passed as law by UK Parliament**

So, after a day's work, and a nights sleep, the four dragons dive _Between_ to the previous morning. Having done everything they could find to do that day, and, for Olmayra, that involved another six hours timed back already, they set out to Albuquerque to start their shopping adventure with a stop at their costume-designer's house.

Some quick sketches and talking later, money changes hands, and the Dragons agree to come back in a week for a fitting.

That done, they head to London at 0900, on High Street, which isn't quite the center of retail it might once have been, but is still full of shops. They waste, literally, hours. Some things are pretty, some things are durable, and some have pockets. Almost nothing meets all three criteria, and at that kind of price, you could buy a new rifle for what they want for a lot of these garments, it would have to.

They disappoint the shopkeeps, and head to Paris, also at 0900. They finally find something Hermione wants, and Luna insists on buying Lessa a pair of pants, but Olmayra is very annoyed.

She takes everyone to her mother's house, in Armero Guayabal, a few miles from the ruins of Armero.

"So, we were shopping in London, and in Paris, and," she sighs, "Mama, it was awful, they had nothing to buy. They had pretty clothes, or durable ones, and nothing had pockets," Olmayra's complaining.

"They'll have a market tomorrow, a couple towns down the mountain, if you want to buy something traditional. Tough and pretty, but old-fashioned," her mother says.

Luna shrugs, "That would be nice, I'm sure."

"Can you stay for dinner?" Olmayra's mother looks at her hopefully, "I can put you up for the night."

Olmayra looks to Lessa, who shrugs, "I have no objections."

*~ aWNB ~*

"Arukou, arukou, watashi wa genki," Lessa is singing the next morning, as they ride the bus with Olmayra's mother, "tanuki mo, kitsune mo, don don yukou."

Hermione finds a brown poncho she adores, and Lessa a green and stripey skirt with multiple deep pockets.

 **6 July 1988:** _ **Piper Alpha**_ **oil platform in the North Sea destroyed by fire and explosion, 165 workers and 2 rescuers killed, 61 workers survive**

Today's mission is another game of Firefox, raiding the Soviet troops in Afghanistan this time, stealing HINDs and tanks. Sixty Assassins pop from _Between_ onto the airfield, and quickly secure the area. Helicopters are drawn _Between_ first, then the T-72s, then the BMPs, then the ammo. Last are the Assassins, without a single shot fired.

 **20 July 1988: Michael Dukakis nominated as the Democratic Presidential candidate**

Angharad, in her stripey Columbian skirt, is leaned back against the wall, Luna's arms around her neck, waiting with Caption Crewe and his wife Noriko. The video shop will open in a couple hours, and they are in the front-half of the line.

Hermione asks from next to them, "Are they all here to buy "Revenge Road?""

Noriko answers, but Angharad is distracted by Luna's kiss.

Hermione is a little distracted, too, and rubs her chin a moment before going back to her mostly green-covered paperback, titled Snowbrother.

 **6-7 August 1988: Tompkins Square Park Riot in NYC**

"I met a boy called Frank Mills," Lessa sings, quietly, as always, "On September Twelfth right here, in front of the Waverly, but unfortunately, I lost his address."

She watches the police surround the park, and the protestors with their signs, "Gentrification is Class War."

"He was last seen with his friend, a drummer who resembles George Harrison, of the Beatles, but he wears his hair tied in a small bow at the back," she smiles, touches the green ribbon in her hair, and walks to a place in front of the protestors.

She is singing a different song, "Sank in mud up to my hip, cussed until the Captain calmed me down," when the police respond to a thrown bottle with a charge, truncheons swinging. She smiles, unfolding, and hisses over bared feathered serpent fangs, spreading great black and green wings, her crest erect and bristling against the night, well lit by the surrounding buildings and streetlights, _"Are you sure this is what you should be doing?"_

The police stagger to a stop, and one starts shooting. She noses him gently, knocking him off his feet, _"Stop that, you might shoot someone."_

Everyone is so wrong-footed they just stare. Lessa breaks the silence, _"Anyone want to join the Assassin's Guild? Pay's good, food's good, and you get to help people. You don't have to sleep in a park if you don't want to. All sorts of positions, combat and non-combat, are available."_

Sargento de Segunda Lewis, her current squad leader, gives her an almost disbelieving look, then pulls out a stack of brochures, splits it for her team leaders, Sargento de Tercera Johnson and Sargento de Tercera Thomas, to hand out, and sets her Soldado to recruiting while the feathered serpent provides security.

*~ aWNB ~*

"So, better or worse, without the riot?"

"Five of our new recruits would have wound up dead, over the next few years, of various privations, and another twelve would have been raped, over the same period, so it's definitely better for them," Luna says, "and they are talking about gentrification instead of police brutality, but Ward is still commissioner. Probably a wash."

"At least it was fun, and no one died," Angharad gathers Luna into a hug, "Thank you."

 **8 August 1988: 8888 Uprising, thousands of anti-government protesters killed in Burma**

Burma is a tougher fix, with deeper roots. Or maybe just better documented ones.

Olmayra is repeating an old lesson to Hermione, "As a dragon, if you are in a fair fight, you've fucked it up, bad. Go back and start over again." She looks out over the crowds, the soldiers firing on protesters in front of the U.S. Embassy, "And this is not a fair fight. How could the Assassins win this?"

Hermione shivers at the sounds of gunfire, the screams of the injured, the sight of hundreds shot and dying, "Air strikes against the BSPP, shooting Ne Win and his assholes, maybe we could take out enough of the bureaucracy for democracy to seep in."

"That might work. How could the League win?"

"Hmm," Hermione twitches at the sound of another gunshot, "Last fall they pulled a bunch of money, so probably the best thing would be to decapitate the BSPP before then."

"Should the League or the Guild be seen to do this, to rescue Burma?"

"Only if we can have Gamera or a feathered serpent do it, since both of those have already intervened in world affairs recently. It might be good advertising, but it would raise bad attention about what we can, and will, do."

"So how do we fix this?"

"We write down all the assholes, and then we kill them, and pin the blame on Thai pirates."

"Or Khmer Rouge remnants," Olmayra suggests, "We want someone believable, but not someone who'll start a war."

"I'm guessing you have a list already."

"No, you need to make it, and decide when we're going to, what we are going to wear, and how we are going to frame the crime."

"And if I fuck it up?"

"We do it over again until you get it right."

 **20 August 1988: Iran-Iraq war ends**

Iraq finally has a proper government again, after the instability caused by Saddam's death, and the 'random' assassinations of many Iraqi politicians. The new Iraqi government is firmly of the opinion that the Kurds need their own country, and has made that a sticking-point for declaring the Iran-Iraq war over.

The Iranians have finally agreed, provided the Turks can be convinced, and the Iraqi government is signing papers to that effect today.

The Turks and the Kurds are protesting, one for going too far, and the other for not going far enough.

 **12-15 September 1988: Hurricane Gilbert devastates Jamaica and the Yucatan**

Ramoth pops out of _Between_ , letting the category three winds blow her along as she folds into Angharad, then unfolds again, concentrating on the points of the ears and the catlike snarl.

" **Skree-aunk!"** Angharad roars, even her giant voice lost in the roar of the storm, the splash as her new, hundred meter tall, form made a perfect parachute landing fall into the ocean. She poses, floating head and tail-tip out of the water, then swims for the Cuban freighter she intends to catch.

 **22 September 1988: Blowout and fire at the** _ **Ocean Odyssey**_ **rig in the North Sea**

"Only three hundred dead from Gilbert so far," Lessa says, "A Cuban freighter and a shrimp boat in the Gulf, most of the dead are in Jamaica and the Yucatan."

Luna nods, "Drop some concrete storm shelters, and get people out of harms way. 150 or so of the dead are from washed away evacuation buses out of Monterey, so that's a priority. Lots of people homeless, lots of property destruction, so we'll get to that afterwards."

"Sounds good," Hermione says, "Who's going where, and when?"

 **29 September 1988: Space shuttle** _ **Discovery**_ **launched, resuming shuttle flights**

The Assassin's anime-fen, mostly, are in civilian clothes, clumped up in the crowds around Cape Canaveral, listening to the countdown. At thirty they are all watching the launch pad, the tip of the drop tank and boosters visible over the trees. At about three seconds to go the main engines light, and about six seconds later the shuttle clears the tower, and it is a tense minute and a quarter before they announce throttle up.

Luna's bouncing in Angharad's arms, cuddled close. Hermione's attention is split between them and the shuttle, still visible to the naked eye as it climbs away, a certain misty longing in her eyes.

 **5 October 1988: Thousands riot against Algerian government, hundreds killed**

The newspaper is shoved across the table to Hermione, who reads the headline, "You want me to fix this."

"Without strengthening the fundies or weakening us," Angharad says, "Olmayra said you did a very good job on Burma."

"I'll get on it, then," she sighs, "This is probably going to be months of work, just like Burma," she looks up at Angharad, "Can I have a hug first?"

"Sure."

Hermione then asks, wrapped in Angharad's arms, "Can I get a kiss, too?"

"Luna?"

Luna gives them each a kiss on the lips.

Hermione looks up at Angharad, her eyes wide and glistening, a certain pleading about the set of her cheeks.

 **7 October 1988: War of the Worlds TV series premiers**

Hermione's noticeably taller when she plops down on Luna's lap that evening, and leans over to give Angharad a kiss on the cheek before getting sucked into the story, as the aliens awaken and start wreaking havoc.

A few days later, the anime-fen, mostly, descend on a movie theater in Colorado Springs, to see Alien Nation.

"I really like," Hermione says, holding Angharad's hand as they walk out of the theater, "How the Newcomers are just people. Different people, but people. Good ones and bad ones."

Luna hip-checks her, "Yep."

Hermione bomps her back.

Angharad, not wanting to be left out of the game, bomps Hermione on her next step, swinging her into Luna again.

 **30 October 1988: Jericho bus firebombing in the West Bank**

"It's a dead man's party, who could ask for more," Lessa sings, looking in her closet, and wondering if she's actually going to dress up for the Halloween party, "Everybody's coming, leave your body at the door, leave your body and soul, at the door."

"You could be Hikaru," Hermione tells her, "I could be Misa," she pauses a moment, "Luna could be Minmay, maybe?"

"I don't know if we want to do Macross," Lessa says, "and we'd have to time it to get the costumes done in time, we really put this off too late."

"Do you know any good stories with three characters?"

"Kimagure Orange Road," Luna says, leaning against the doorframe, "You could be Kyousuke, or Akane, I'd be Hikaru, and Angharad could be Madoka. But the costumes aren't very recognizable."

"We'd need a red straw hat, too," Hermione agrees, "Maybe non-anime?"

"Dragons are too big for parties," Lessa says, "I don't want to be a hobbit, Kirk, Bones, and Spock?"

Hermione shakes her head, "Eew."

"Girl-Kirk, Girl-Bones, and Girl-Spock?" Luna offers.

"No," Hermione denies.

"Ripley, Newt, and, what's her name, Ramirez?"

"There is a horrible lack of girls in SF, at least TV and movie SF, isn't there?" Lessa says, "If we age Newt up a lot, maybe."

"There's girls in Iczer One," Luna says, "One of them is even a blonde," she flicks her hair a moment, "There's plenty of female characters in Gundam, even if they tend to die horribly-"

"Everyone in Gundam tends to die horribly," Lessa defends.

"Gall Force is pretty much all girls-"

"Who die horribly," Lessa paraphrases.

"Yep, but keep getting reincarnated because they are too cheap to come up with new character designs. Um, Cutey Honey,"

"Two girls," Hermione sighs, "but I'd pay to see Honey and Na-chan get together."

"Urusei Yatsura," Luna offers

"Pretty costume designs," Lessa says, shrugging.

"Project A-Ko."

"Schoolgirl uniforms, pass," Hermione says, 'You would look cute with drill-hair," she tells Luna, referring to Iczer-One's wild blonde mane.

"We could all be boys," Lessa says, "And have Olmayra dress up with us."

"She can dress up with us anyway, but even in anime boy clothes tend to suck," Hermione says, "Dangaioh, Olmayra could be what's his name."

"Or she could be Pai, and you could be what's his name."

"So would you want to be Ranba or Miya?" Luna asks.

Olmayra does agree to be Rol Kran, but opts for a bodysuit and tights to match the girls, much to the slack-jawed bemusement of the anime-fen, who eventually agree that it does match better.

 **2 November 1988: Robert Tappan Morris releases the Great Worm, accidentally breaking the Internet**

"It's going to be your birthday again, soon," Luna says, "What would you like?"

Hermione stops, turns to face Luna, and leans back on the wall to think, "I don't know," she tucks her hair behind her ear.

Luna smiles and nods.

"Something pretty," Hermione shrugs, "It's not like I can't buy myself pretty much whatever I could want, but I really don't want much. I'm not going to ask," she stops, waves her hand, "Doesn't matter, I have to get that myself. Maybe one of the F-16XLs and training to fly it? They're very pretty, even if I outclass them in every way," she pauses, corrects herself, "Well, I can't carry air to air missiles, but better in every other way, anyway."

"I'll talk to Lessa, see what the budget says," Luna steps up close, sliding her hand into Hermione's hair, cupping the back of her head, and pulls her, very slowly, close.

Hermione leans up the last few centimeters to kiss her.

 **8 November 1988: George H.W. Bush elected U.S. President**

"How is this in any way better?" Angharad, and, for that matter, half the Assassins eating midnight chow, yells at the TV.

"He's not senile yet?" Hermione offers.

"That might have been one of his better points," Luna sighs.

"Can I bite this one?" Olmayra asks.

Angharad and Hermione lean in close for the answer.

"No, not if we want to buy American jets."

Hermione gives her a speculative look.

 **10 November 1988: USAF discloses the F-117 stealth fighter, ending years of speculation about the F-19**

"I am not opposed to the idea," President Reagan tells Luna, "But it is not usual to sell front-line fighters to non-governmental organizations, let alone ones who have opposed our interests in the past."

"Having the F-16 XLs would help our negotiations with Iran," Luna tells him, leaning forward earnestly.

"What are you negotiating with Iran for?"

"The spiritual home of the Assassins, even though none of our Guild have ever lived there, is the mountain fortress of Alamut, which is in what is now Iran. We could just take it, but then we'd have to hold it."

"Against a rather rich, if small, nation."

"They would be a little smaller if you could convince the Turks to let go of their chunk of Kurdistan."

"I'm the lame duck now, so you'll probably need to discuss that with George."

"Probably, but you have a bit of rapport with many people, so I thought I would ask you, too."

President Reagan smiles, both recognizing and pleased by the flattery.

 **13 November 1988: an Ethiopian law student in Portland, OR, is beaten to death by Neo-Nazis**

Hermione pops from _Between_ , landing a few blocks from her destination, and her squad disembarks, forming up around her as she folds into her normal girl-shape.

Olmayra is dropping her squad a couple blocks on the other side, and will be hanging back to provide air support if needed.

Their client is walking with a friend, right near his apartment, not paying any attention to his surroundings, and Hermione sighs almost silently to herself. Some people have no paranoia.

The three idiots in the car have too much paranoia, and their girlfriends . . .

Her squad waits, as the three men get out of the car, cussing and threatening, working themselves up, and their girlfriends don't have enough sense to try and stop them.

One of them swings his bat first, a firm **crack** of wood on Seraw's flesh, and Hermione moves, grabbing the bat on the backswing, and pulling it.

The man stumbles, and his buddies yell, drawing back their bats to take a swing, and her squad tackles them to the ground.

Hermione kicks her man in the back of the knee, and gives the bat another tug. He bangs his knees on the asphalt of 31st street, and she drops the bat behind her.

"That was assault with a deadly weapon, intimidation in the first degree, and a violation of the Civil Rights act of 1968. I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV. I am General de Brigada Granger, of the Assassin's Guild, and mister Seraw, as an Ethiopian citizen, is covered under our contract with the Ethiopian government."

"You are not a fucking general," one of the other men says. Hermione glances at him quickly, despite herself, then focuses back on her prisoner, "You're just a girl."

"I am not just a girl, but the Guild is a very young organization."

Eventually the Portland Police Department arrives, after the paramedics, and takes custody of the men.

 **15 November 1988: Soviet spaceplane** _ **Buran**_ **launches on it's only flight**

Ramoth takes one last look at the video of _Buran_ in orbit, and dives _Between_. Low Earth Orbit, she finds, is a little warmer than Between, but just as airless. She takes a quick look in a window, then dives _Between_ back to Somalia.

 **15 November 1988: the PNC declares (in Algiers) an independent state of Palestine**

"Why did you wait until after he hit me?" Seraw asks, rubbing the cast on his arm.

"Because you dying really motivated people to fight the neo-Nazis, but this was an easy fix, so I couldn't just do nothing and hope it worked out. Your father and son got a judgement of 12.5 million, but I'm pretty sure they prefer to have you than the money, particularly since the neo-Nazi's couldn't pay that much."

"Yes, I can see that. We can probably sue them anyway."

"This is America," Hermione agrees.

 **22 November 1988: the prototype B-2 bomber revealed in Palmdale, CA**

"Miss Pavlichenko, well known to fame," Lessa sings softly to herself, prone unsupported, working the bolt of the Mosin-Nagant, "Russia's her country, fighting's her game," she brings her sites onto the 600 meter popup target, and squeezes the trigger gently. **Blam**. "Up come her sights, down comes a hun," she works the bolt, watching for the next target, "More than three hundred Nazis fell by her gun." **Blam**. "Fell by her gun." **Blam**. "Fell by her gun."

 **2 December 1988: Benazir Bhutto sworn in as Prime Minister of Pakistan**

"We need to testify before the U.S. Senate about why they should sell us F-16 XLs." Luna tells Olmayra, "But that is next year, after Bush is sworn in."

 **20 December 1988: the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances is signed in Vienna**

"Happy Birthday!" Luna lets herself into Hermione's room, yelling loudly.

"Who's birthday?" Hermione asks, pistol in hand, but back on the bed, safety on, finger out of the trigger guard.

"Your birthday," Angharad says, bringing in a large cake, covered in coconut and caramel.

"Well, you got the cake right, if not the date," Hermione says, counting candles on the cake, "Or the number of candles."

"Luna says we missed your thirteenth birthday, so we're trying to make up for it."

Luna lights the 14 candles, then tells Angharad, "On three, One, Two, Three:

"Doom and gloom and dark despair

People dying everywhere

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday"

The two sing slowly, deepening their voices to match the slow tempo of the song.

"May the cities in your wake

Burn like candles on your cake

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday"

Hermione laughs merrily, "That's awesome!"

"Blow out the candles," Angharad encourages.

With a deep breath, Hermione does just that, before gathering the other two into a big hug.

 **21 December 1988: Pan Am Flight 103 blown up over Scotland**

"It's Christmas time in Hollis, Queens," Angharad joins a group of Assassins in singing along with the radio, "Mom's cooking chicken and collard greens," she winces, just barely noticeably, blinks, and Luna gives her a hug.

Hermione notices that, and wraps her arms around them both.

 **25 December 1988: Bubblegum Crisis episode 5, "Moonlight Rambler" released.**

Olmayra is at her mother's house, but the other three members of the League of Dragons are in Tokyo, waiting in line with Capitán Crewe and his wife. All five are in civilian clothes, for the plan is to meet up with Anno and several others from Gainax after they get done shopping, and before they split up for their Christmas dinners.

Hermione is dressed in a tan shirt and brown skirt, her hair tied back with a bronze ribbon. Brown apatite and diamonds glimmer at her ears and throat. Angharad is in the green outfit she wore the last time they waited in line to buy Bubblegum Crisis, and Luna is dressed similarly, although she has a very blue, and very anachronistic, tactical kilt instead of a skirt.

*~ aWNB ~*

Anno is the first to mention it, "Are the complementary outfits and jewelry a statement or?"

Hermione smiles back, "I hope so, Luna plays things a little close to the chest sometimes."

"You could have asked, and then I could have told you that both of you are mine."

"But you might have said no," Angharad gives her a poke, "It wasn't very likely, and I didn't expect it, but you could have."

At the end of 1988, Olmayra is 18, Luna is 17, Lessa/Harry/Angharad is 16, and Hermione is 14.

Log:

Early May 2017: Reading too many Harry Potter fanfic, and thinking about how one cannot,

canonically, be a magical creature animagus. Pernese Dragons are non- magical . . .

.

.

.

16 June 2017: More.

18 June 2017: More. Finished 1985 first draft.

6 July 2017: More. Finished 1988 first draft.


	5. 1989

Harry Potter and a Warm Night _Between_

Based On J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter

Influenced by many things

All historical figures present are "Inspired by real people and events" based on research, rather than actual knowledge of them as people.

History items copied and or paraphrased from Wikipedia

Some are missing - prevented from occurring by the increasing scope of League actions - or changed

Recommendations for 1989:

Blue Oyster Cult, Club Ninja, Cultosaurus Erectus

Neil Young, Freedom

C-SPAN archives, 8 March 1989

Bubblegum Crisis Episode 6

Aim for the Top! Gunbuster

Kiki's Delivery Service

 **7 January 1989: Japanese Emperor Hirohito dies, ending the Showa era**

"It keeps calling me it's master, but I feel more like it's slave, hauling me, faster and faster, to an early, early grave," Lessa sings to herself, as she goes over the weekly budget report.

Luna flops down into the chair on the other side of Lessa's desk, and waits for her to look up, "It's my birthday, again."

"Oh?" Lessa frowns a moment, then relaxes, "Thank you for telling me," she pauses a moment, then asks, "What did you spend almost a year on in the last couple months?"

"Ensuring South Korea, Norway, and Germany bought F-16 XLs," Luna smiles, "We can't buy any if they aren't for sale."

Lessa nods, "Indeed."

*~ aWNB ~*

Angharad rushes up to Hermione, grabs her hand, and pulls her off in search of Olmayra.

"What's the hurry?"

"It's Luna's birthday."

"But she just had one in November."

"She said something about getting people to buy F-16 XLs."

"Yeah, South Korea, Norway, and Germany ordered a couple dozen each, back in the early '80s, which is surprising, because the F-15 won the contract with the U.S. Air Force," Hermione pauses, "But there were only two F-16 XLs when I asked her for one."

"Yep, I think Luna did it."

"Then we'd better make her a fucking awesome cake."

 **17 January 1989: Stockton schoolyard shooting**

"You don't have to testify," Luna tells Olmayra.

"I'm the oldest."

"That was last month," Luna smiles up at her.

"And I'm the one who decided it was a good idea to start impaling bandits in Africa."

"It was a good idea," Luna pauses, "No, it was an effective idea. But this is a present for Hermione, so I don't want to traumatize you for it."

"If I can do it, I should be able to talk about it," Olmayra sighs, "But it is not going to be easy."

"I'll get you a list of the questions you should expect."

"How many people have you impaled?" Olmayra starts, "What made you decide to start impaling people? How many have the Assassins impaled? When did you first impale someone, and why? Are you a Communist? Have you ever been a Communist? How could you work for the Sandinistas and not be a Communist? Why did you become an Assassin?"

"What did you feel, trapped under the doorframe of your house, with your dead aunt's arms around your legs?" Luna says softly, then gives the slightly younger girl a hug.

"Yeah, that."

 **18 January 1989: Massacre of La Rochella perpetrated by the Medellin Cartel.**

"I think," Angharad says, "We dropped the ball last year."

"What about?"

"Drugs, or more precisely, drug prohibition," Angharad sighs, looking at the day's copy of El Tiempo, "We have the first world distracted from their real problems by their self-made problem with illicit drugs, which they could solve by legalizing. Of course, last year, the UN got involved, and now there is an international treaty saying they can't legalize."

"That's fucking dumb," Hermione says, "Why did they do that?"

"Because they thought it was a good idea, obviously."

"I meant, why did they think it was a good idea?"

"Lack of historical knowledge?" Angharad shrugs, "Drugs fuck people up, but not as bad as drug prohibition fucks communities up. Prohibition drives up prices and eliminates legal competition. Do the beer companies shoot at each other anymore?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because they can talk out their differences and they are under the rule of law."

"Why do drug gangs shoot at each other?"

"Because they can't talk to each other, and they are outside the law."

"Yep. Fix it."

Hermione whines, "Do I have to?"

"No, but I think you can, and it would make the world a more just and safer place to live."

"I need hugs, and kisses, and cuddles, and help with this," she spreads her arms wide.

Angharad climbs into her lap, and puts her chin on Hermione's shoulder as she is squeezed tightly.

"I'll start looking into how to fix this."

 **24 January 1989: Florida executes Ted Bundy**

Olmayra's squad is spread, as inconspicuously as possible for ten Assassins in civilian clothes, around Clinton Elementary School in Stockton. A Chevy van pulls up, and a slender man with a mustache gets out. He pulls an AK-47 and a glass bottle with a rag sticking out out of the van and stops a few steps away.

Olmayra waits for him to light the rag, and throw the Molotov Cocktail into the van. She then taps him on the shoulder and slugs him in the jaw when he turns. He drops like a wet noodle, and Olmayra collects up his rifle and ammunition before leading her squad from the area.

Soldado Roberts, who has a deep voice, calls 911 from a payphone several blocks away. Olmayra dives Between with three members of her squad. Roberts is talking to the dispatcher, "A young man pulled up behind the school, Cleveland Elementary, with a van, and he was wearing body armor, and he threw a Molotov Cocktail in his van, so I hit him and knocked him out, which is assault, so I'm calling from this payphone, 'cause I don't wanna get arrested for stopping this guy," when a small mushroom cloud blooms from the school, followed by a low **Boom**. He hangs up, and Olmayra pops back out of _Between_ to grab him and the other three members of her squad still in California.

 **2 February 1989: The last Soviet armored column leaves Kabul, ending nine years of occupation**

The Soviet column out of Kabul can only be called "Armored" because it has two operable tanks, and three on lowboys, being towed, inoperable.

 **14 February 1989: Ayatollah Khomeini issues a fatwa calling for the death of Salman Rushdie**

Capitán Crewe drops his head into his hands, "That's fucking dumb."

Noriko pulls the paper over, reads it, then sighs, "Can we talk him out of it?"

"Now, no, a few weeks ago, maybe."

 **15 February 1989: Soviet Union announces that the last Soviet troops have left Afghanistan**

"Don't waste your time, don't make this man famous. If you ignore him, he'll vanish into the noise."

"But he is demeaning Islam, and the prophet."

"The book isn't badly written, but unless you make it, and him, famous, no one will care. He writes about a crazy man having a crazy man's dream, where some prostitutes try to be respectable by using the names of the Prophet's wives. No one who believes will be swayed to disbelief by reading this book, and some who disbelieve may become interested enough to become believers. This fatwa, on the other hand," Capitán Crewe pushes over a copy of the fatwa, published either the day before, or two weeks in the future, depending on how one looks at it, "Will make this man famous, will make this book famous, and will show you, Iran, and Islam as intolerant, ineffectual, terrorist assholes who respond to mockery with death threats they cannot carry out."

The old man looks at the paper, and says, "I will think about what you said," he closes his eyes, "It should not be tolerated."

"Which would have the worse effect? Tolerating this man's bad taste, or trying to suppress him, and having the world look upon Iran as shameful, while laughing about the fact that a rich country like this cannot even kill one man? That all the Muslims in the world cannot kill this one man?"

"But he is a blasphemer," The old man shakes his head.

"And, I believe, a non-believer. There are few things as pitiful, to my mind, as trying to punish a non-believer for not believing. The Catholics tried it, the Protestants tried it, and it just made them look mean and stupid."

"And it killed a lot of people, including Muslims."

"So is that a good precedent to follow?"

"As I said, I will think on this again."

 **25 February 1989: GNU GPL V1 released**

"Anno gave me these," Angharad greets Luna and Hermione, holding out two LaserDiscs, "Apparently he is the director, and we managed to not see either of them yet."

"There isn't that much anime released every year," Hermione doesn't quite question.

"I wanted to watch it with you after Halloween," Luna says, giving her a hug.

"By ourselves first, then we can share it with the rest of the anime fen?" Angharad asks.

"Of course. Just the first two today, then the next two tomorrow, and the last two in July, when they come out."

The first tape of Aim for the Top: Gunbuster is fed to the player, and the questions begin, "Is Noriko named after Capitán Crewe's wife?"

"Sparkle-cam! Is it just a crush, or will they end up together?" at the first sight of Kazumi.

"Can I have a giant robot? These ones are little, so they should be cheaper, and not impossible like Bubblegum Crisis hardsuits," as Noriko pulls tires with her Machine Weapon.

"Maybe a spaceship? They're a lot simpler," Luna says, later, as Noriko and Kazumi's Machine Weapons RX-07 clamp onto the boosters, getting ready head out on their intercept mission.

"This Noriko needs to grow up a bit, I was more adult at ten," Angharad complains as Noriko breaks down after finding the preserved space monster.

"You were more adult than most adults at ten," Luna says, "So that's hardly fair."

 **1 March 1989: The Berne Convention ratified by the U.S.**

The Assassin's anime-fen, now numbering more than three hundred, are gathered it the movie theater of the Somali headquarters, watching episodes 3 and 4 of Gunbuster.

"Fuck yeah!" a female voice yells, as Noriko obviously pines over Kazumi at the same time she is confused and flattered by Toren's attention.

A little while later a different voice calls, "Give the rookie the hard job, why don't you. Idiot!"

Someone else replies, "This is the first fight for all of them, give him a break!"

A little later, "That worked out great, didn't it, Smith."

Things are relatively quiet through Noriko's worries and doubts, followed by appreciative noises as Noriko levels up in badass.

"Kiss her!" Someone calls as Kazumi lands her RX in the Gunbuster's hand, eyes trembling with unshed tears, and the opening song comes up. Other people take up the call as the scene cuts to Jung-freud's slightly sad smile, "Kiss her!" A flash of Kochi, a shot of Jung's RX small in front of the Gunbuster, then one of Gunbuster small in front of the Excelion, then fade to black and the credits.

"When's the next one?"

"July."

"Is Noriko going to get Kazumi?"

"Maybe if we write Anno enough letters."

 **2 March 1989: twelve European Community nations agree to ban all CFC production**

"I thought she'd just steal me one of the prototypes," Hermione says, "When I asked. Not easy, but not really difficult, either. They'll be testifying before the U.S. Senate on why we should be allowed to buy them."

Angharad gives her a hug, "Luna does like a challenge, sometimes."

"So you want a space ship," Hermione changes the subject.

"We're nowhere near a working FTL theory, but NERVA rockets would get us around the solar system."

"Can't we just dive _Between_?"

"I can only hold my breath for so long, which seems to be about twenty minutes, maybe a half-hour."

"A dragon-spacesuit?"

"A submarine with NERVA rockets. Drop it off in L4 or something, then burn wherever you want to go."

 **8 March 1989: House Foreign Relations Committee Arms Control Subcommittee hearing in the U.S. Congress.**

At last it is our turn, after much talk of U.S. budgets, the Assistant Secretary of State, Allen Holmes, and Director Brown of the Defense Security Assistance Agency.

Representative Fascell addresses Olmayra, "General Sanchez," he looks down, then back up, "I understand you want to pay cash for twenty F-16 XLs."

"Yes, the Assassin's Guild's current fighter forces have all been acquired through alternative methods, or donated in lieu of payment. We have almost as many kinds of fighters as we have aircraft. The acquisition costs of these new fighters would be offset by the reduced complexity of our maintenance requirements."

"I understand the Soviet Union has offered MIG-29s for sale."

"They have also offered SU-27s, including the SU-27K."

"What is the SU-27K?"

"Stronger undercarriage, reinforced structure, bigger wings, canards, and uprated engines. They claim that they will be able to deliver the whole order by the end of 1990, at a cost of $25 million each."

"And you are bidding $27 million each for the F-16 XLs."

"Yes, because General Dynamics has been producing them in quantity for years, and can fulfill our order within six months."

"And you can pay for these?"

"We are willing to prepay for two aircraft, and pay for each aircraft as it is delivered."

"So $54 million at the time the order is accepted, and $27 million as each aircraft is delivered?"

"Except for the last two, which we will have paid for first."

"And you are also ordering repair parts and training?"

"Yes, another $40 million."

"And that money will come in?"

"Ten million with the first aircraft, and ten million with every fifth aircraft."

"Having seen your organization's positive influence on the developing world, and the reduced need for foreign aid and military support your organization has provided, it is the opinion of this committee that your purchase should be approved as requested," Representative Fascell says.

"Thank you," Olmayra says.

 **13 March 1989: Geomagnetic storm collapses the Hydro-Quebec power grid, as well as some areas in the NE USA and Sweden, Aurorae are seen as far as Texas**

"Dr. Najib," Capitán Crewe, once again, is negotiating, this time with the President of the Democratic People's Republic of Afghanistan, "There are two ways this war will end," he gestures at the map he brought, "With the Mujahideen winning, or with you pre-empting them, and announcing a shift to multi-party democracy, with yourself, Massoud, and Haq, to run the transition, and maybe Haqqani, to appease the Americans."

"Why do we want to appease the Americans?"

"Because they have too much money, and they'll spend it to bring down a Communist state," Harry sighs, "You don't have nearly as much military hardware as you used to, and the Soviets are crumbling. We, the Assassins, don't care if you are Communist, Capitalist, or some mix of the two, so long as you look out for your mothers and children, don't let the Fundamentalists take over, and let the little things get taken care of at the lowest level. One percent of your gross tax revenue, and we'll help you end your civil war, and keep you safe from your neighbors."

 **24 March 1989: the Exxon Valdez runs aground and spills 240,000 barrels of oil**

"Do we want to fix the symptoms or the problem?" Luna asks.

"Fixing the symptom is so much faster," Hermione says, "I can slug one guy a few days ago, and fix the symptom."

"Will that prevent future problems as well as letting them crash?"

"No fucking clue," Hermione says, "But I can save a lot of seabirds right now."

"The tankers have taken to running 12 to 14 hour shifts, with half the crew they used in 1977. I think a good scare . . . "

"Let me! Let me!" Hermione says, suddenly cackling, "I know just the thing!"

"Are you sure?"

"No, but that rarely stops me," Hermione says, laughing again, "This'll be so much fun."

 **2-6 April 1989: attempted cease-fire in South-West Africa (Namibia) fails, 300 killed in fighting**

Hermione drops out of _Between_ as a gold dragon, then splashes into the cold ocean water, paddling about in the cold, calm waves over Bligh Reef for a moment. The ship she wants is barely visible in the distance, navigation lights bobbing into view at the crest of each wave. She folds into her normal human form, "Brr," she says, as she pops back to the surface, shivering, then, concentrating on the beak, and the suction cups under each of her four tentacle arms, she unfolds again, long finned tail behind, and dives.

One hand reaches up near the bow, another towards the back, and a third stretches towards the bridge windows.

No one notices, and Hermione pulls her massive form further out of the water, the oil tanker groaning as it dips a little under her weight, gets her beaked face in full view of the bridge windows, and hisses, "HAA!"

Now there is yelling, and screaming, and an "All Hands" alarm. She shoves off, flipping her tail so it slides up the side of the ship and flings water everywhere, and swims backwards to Bligh Reef, keeping her eyes on the ship as all the lights come on in a panic. She watches, cackling, from the top of the submerged reef, as the ship carefully avoids her. An hour later she waves to the Coast Guard helicopter, then dives under the water after they take a few pictures.

 **7 April 1989: Soviet submarine K-278 _Komsolmolets_ sinks with two nuclear-tipped torpedoes**

 _'Get the crew out of the water!'_ Ramoth orders, dropping three self-inflating dragon-bags out of her LCE, and her squad, in drysuits because of the cold Norwegian waters, drop after them.

The men in the water are gathered into the floating dragon-bags, and given hot chocolate from proffered thermoses.

The 10,000 ton displacement inflatable raft fills under the submarine, cupping it, holding the ship on the surface, while Kraken-form Hermione smiles gleefully from port side, holding the sail in one hand to keep it upright. A translator climbs over, and hooks into the intercom, which thankfully works, and starts telling the last few crew members to evacuate, because the electrical fire will be extinguished with lots of halon.

Luna's team hooks up the tanks of Halon 1301, and starts flooding the burning interior. The last five crew members come out, and are loaded into a dragon-bag, and taken _Between_ to a nearby Soviet fish-processing ship.

Luna returns and gathers up the Assassins.

Hermione smiles at Ramoth, and dives _Between_ with _Komsolmolets_ , popping back a moment later glazed in ice. She splashes around for a few minutes in the warm Norwegian water.

 _"Are you warm enough yet?"_ Ramoth asks, concerned.

 _"And I thought Between was cold,"_ Hermione complains.

 _"You were covered in seawater, and the drop point for L5 is in the shade right now,"_ Ramoth agrees, " _Part of why I didn't volunteer for that part."_

 _"Folding into my wetsuit now,"_ Hermione agrees, _"Get me out of the water before I freeze. Again."_

Ramoth catches the tiny neoprene-clad form out of the water, tucks her into her LCE, and dives _Between_ , leaving no trace.

 **15 April 1989: 96 killed at a football game in Hillsborough**

"As we become a more mature organization, we should adopt a more mature name," Olmayra says, "We're losing business because of our name."

"You have a proposition, I'm guessing," Hermione responds, while Angharad and Luna look interested.

Olmayra turns over a piece of paper, revealing a hand-drawn insignia. Unlike Angharad, Olmayra actually puts in enough time drawing to be good at it, instead of barely good enough for drawing out battle plans.

The other three look at the four-pointed round-sided diamond shape in a circle, and smile.

"We've actually acquired space assets, and have a spaceship that needs a lot of fixing,"

"Or maybe we could trade it back to the Soviets for them building us a ship that already has rocket engines."

"Maybe. We'll ask if they want their burnt-up submarine with a scrammed reactor back, or if we have to fix it ourselves."

 **17 April 1989: Solidarity legalized in Poland**

"NASA has announced they will be carrying their external tanks all the way to orbit starting in August, having been inspired by our collection of 27 tanks in L5, and the _Komsolmolets_." Hermione sets down the paper.

"Interesting."

"The CIA has offered an SSBN with NERVA rockets for _Komsolmolets_ , apparently they read our letter to the USSR already, but the Soviets haven't responded yet," Lessa sets aside the couriered letter, smiling, "The RD-140 looks like an interesting variation on the theme, so we'll wait, and see what they have to say."

" _Komsolmolets_ needs a lot of work, it burned pretty well, so we'll see," Luna declares.

"How do we have 27 external tanks in L5, when we haven't collected any yet?" Hermione asks, then answers herself, "Must have timed it."

 **19 April 1989: An experiment with overcharging the 16" guns on the USS Iowa blows up a turret, killing 16**

"If we use Bowers v. Hardwick to establish a right to privacy," Hermione mumbles, looking over her pile of notes, "We only need to flip one judge to kill all the sodomy laws, but it'll be more work to claim a right to privacy, which we need to derail the psychotropic convention."

"O'Conner, Powell, Rehnquist, Burger, and White sided with the law, Burger and White seemed upset on the face of it, so we'd need to get the focus off of sex and onto privacy. The question needs to be why the State has any authority over what consenting people do in their own homes, rather than whether they have a right to engage in particular sex acts,"

 **21 April 1989: Students begin protesting in Tiananmen Square**

"Where are we going?" Angharad asks, flipping through her wall locker, and the four or five sets of civilian clothes that fit her, moments from deciding not to choose and just wearing a uniform.

"Washington, DC," Luna answers, looking over the suit she's wearing, dark blue with pinstripes, 1950s cut, enough out of fashion to be obviously intentional, "When are we going?"

"Mid-January, 1988. I finally got O'Connor to accept an invitation, so we need to make a good showing," Hermione is also dressed nicely, civilian gown, a paler blue.

"Mmmph," Angharad whines, refolds into Lessa, and pulls the hanger with a blue skirt and vest out, throwing them on the bed as she shrugs into a white blouse.

 **25 April 1989: Motorola releases the MicroTac**

"Taken together, the third and fourth amendments imply a right to privacy," Hermione says, then takes a sip of his drink.

The older man sighs, "But they don't spell it out."

"I imagine they thought it was obvious. Without probable cause, what purpose would the government need to look into someone's home for? There is no reason to pursue victimless crimes beyond growing government power at the expense of the people."

"Here you are," Harry interjects, bumping Hermione lightly with a shoulder, "I was looking for you."

Hermione grabs his hand, gives it a squeeze, then drops it.

"I imagine you have a fix for the drug problem that doesn't require invading people's privacy, then?"

"Look at Prohibition. Do we still have people making and selling illegal alcohol?"

"Yes."

"But it isn't a problem anymore. Some people drink too much. Some people die of it. People shouldn't drink and drive, but the gangs got out of the alcohol business as soon as legal competition made it unprofitable. Don't we have better things to do than spend millions of dollars to make sure criminals can make a profit?"

Justice Powell nods, "I can think of a few."

"Thank you for listening," Harry says, "He gets worked up sometimes," he gives Hermione's shoulder a gentle tug.

"Yes, thank you," Hermione says, "It was great meeting you."

 **1 May 1989: Andres Rodriguez is elected president of Paraguay in an election marked by charges of fraud**

"Grr," Olmayra more says than growls.

"What is it?" Hermione asks.

"Paraguay," Olmayra drops the paper back onto the chow-hall table, "We're not involved enough to participate," she pauses a moment, "We're not being paid to fix their problems, and it would take major work to do anything beyond fixing the current symptom."

"I could," Hermione starts.

"Finish fixing the psychotropic convention. We flipped Bowers, but not strongly enough. A real right to privacy in the US would preclude them from joining the convention, and might derail it entirely."

 **4 May 1989: Oliver North convicted on Iran-Contra charges**

"To our good friends, the Assassin's Guild, we bequeath, in perpetuity, the fortress and surrounding mountain of Al Amut," The translator says, as a deep-voiced man reads in Farsi.

Harry accepts the document on behalf of the Guild.

 **10 May 1989: Manuel Noriega refuses to step down after losing the presidential election in Panama.**

"The Soviets have offered us the Typhoon on the slip at P.O. Sevmash, suitably converted, in exchange for the Komsolmolets and her nuclear torpedos."

"But nukes," Luna whines, "We'll have to steal some from somewhere else, then."

"Yeah, the U.S. is offering us some NERVA rockets in exchange for the test results."

"That's interesting," Hermione says, "Very interesting."

 **11 May 1989: 1900 U.S. troops ordered to Panama.**

The day is clear, the sun shining brightly on a cloud layer over the Mediterranean, and Ramoth drops out of Between close enough to read the tail number, and far enough back not to be seen. This time, finally, it is 52-534. " _Found it_." She dives _Between_ a few miles ahead and above, a tiny flicker of gold, lost against the glare of the sun.

Ruth is coasting along, below the bombers, hidden against the clouds, diving _Between_ occasionally to keep the faster bombers in sight.

A couple hours pass this way before the bombers start descending to refuel, dropping into the clouds.

" _Here we go_ ," Ruth says, diving _Between_ for altitude.

Ramoth flares in front of the B-47 Stratojet, close enough to be frighteningly huge in the limited visibility of the cloud, stalling and dropping out of the way.

The pilot, as hoped, throttles back, and Ruth swoops down, matching speed as he grabs the bomber and pulls it _Between_.

Ramoth smiles, showing gleaming white teeth, and dives _Between_.

 **16 May 1989: Coup attempt in Ethiopia**

"We found your bomber," Luna smiles, repeating the earlier statement, this time to President Bush.

"We thank you for returning it, and it's crew," he says, smiling and nodding, "Would your personnel who affected the recovery be willing to receive a medal? Perhaps the Presidential Medal of Freedom, or a lesser award if it would be more acceptable?"

"We would be willing. Have things scheduled with our people, and we will have an appropriate delegation for it."

"Thank you," he pulls a manilla envelope from inside his desk, checks the label, then slides it across, "You might be interested in finding these items, too. We don't need them back, but we do want them found."

"Could we get manuals for these items? I'm sure we could acquire them through alternative means, but proper documentation would make things easier and safer."

"I think that can be arranged."

 **17 May 1989: More than a million protestors march through Beijing demanding greater democracy**

"Yes, this is a test case, but you need to look past what these men are accused of, and at the constitutional root of the problem."

"And what is that?"

"The third, fourth, and fifth amendments, what, taken together, do they say?"

"The third says that the government can't house it's soldiers in a citizen's house. The fourth protects from unlawful search and seizure, and the fifth protects against self-incrimination."

"So what does that say about their intent? Is the government supposed to be able to plant spies in people's homes? Can the government, constitutionally, regulate what citizens do in their own homes, when it doesn't harm anyone?"

"I think you also don't believe suicide should be illegal, either."

"What's the point. If they succeed, they've punished themselves. If they fail, what are you going to do, execute them?"

He laughs, "I see your point. I'll have to think about that."

 **20 May 1989: Martial Law declared in Beijing**

"More than the fact that this law has basically become a bill of attainder,"

"How so?"

"Griswold says that married people can engage in whatever sorts of sex they want. Einstadt extended that to unmarried people, and now Georgia has said that they will only try to enforce it on homosexuals, effectively saying that it is a felony to be in a same-sex relationship."

"The bible says that such relationships are sinful and wrong."

"The bible says protect your guests, even at risk to your own family, and do your duties towards your brother's family as your own."

"Hmm."

"More that that, this is a question of privacy. Consensual activities in one's own home are protected by the third, fourth, and fifth amendments, and are not subject to legislative constraint."

That gets a dubious look.

Harry sits back, trying to emote sincerity, and elaborates.

 **29 May 1989: Argentine government declares a state of siege**

Angharad watches the C-SPAN coverage from March 8th, sure that there is something different about it.

Oh, Representative Fascell isn't talking about drug enforcement before he starts talking to Olmayra about fighter planes. Nice.

 **31 May 1989: MRTA terrorists shoot eight transexuals in Tarapoto, Peru**

Angharad reads the weekly _Cambio,_ sets it down, paces back and forth a moment, refolds into Lessa, paces back, refolds into Harry, and punches the wall, embedding his fist in the cinderblock.

Hermione walks in, drawn by the noise, and Harry waves at the Moviemiento Revolutionario Tupac Amaru's weekly newsletter on the table with his free hand, his other one lightly trapped by the shattered cinderblock.

Bits of rubble softly grind together as he gives his fist a little tug.

Hermione picks it up, and looks it over, "My Spanish is still weak, something about executions and travestis?"

"Travesti is Spanish for transvestite, and sometimes transexual. They shot eight girls because they were queer, and their being queer is somehow the American's fault."

"Didn't the Inca have special roles for queers?"

"Yeah, but MRTA has a whole lot of Spanish and Catholic garbage mixed in, and mostly reflects the public perceptions of queers in Peru," Harry says, finally giving up on just pulling his fist out of the wall, and relaxes his hand, cupping and blading his fingers to pull them out.

"So punching six assholes will save eight girls, but won't fix anything."

"Pretty much."

"How long have these fuckers been causing problems in Peru?"

"Since 1980."

"Maybe Luna or Olmayra can help me with some consciousness raising for them."

"I'm gonna go punch six assholes," Harry says, refolding into Lessa, "You go fix things so they're not on hand to be punched."

 **3 June 1989: Fighting breaks out between ethnic Uzbeks and Turkish minorities in Uzbek SSR**

*Smack* the thick meaty thump of a small fist slamming, last three knuckles flat, into an unarmored solar plexus, and the first man drops, clutching his chest, wheezing.

His buddies startle, and Angharad follows up with a stupidly-high side kick, ball of the foot to solar plexus followed by heel into floating ribs. He drops with a crackle and whoosh.

Twist, outstretched leg coming back in, other leg coming up, snap kick, hard enough to debilitate when blocked by a thigh, instead slamming into the man's crotch with a *crack* of breaking pubic bone. He drops, keening.

Three down. Foot to the floor, falling forward as the other foot recoils, step forward, heel of the palm into the tallest man's chin, and he drops, out cold.

Swing backhand, other fist aiming for the next man's jaw, but he ducks and turns, taking the backfist to the nose instead of his chin, staying on his feet as he bends, crouching to cup his broken nose.

The last man is just far enough away, and Angharad kicks almost straight up, twisting her hips at the last moment to put the heel of her boot into his jaw. He falls, bonelessly, and Angharad poses a second, full vertical split, heel well over head, before dropping her foot to the ground.

"I know you assholes are jealous," she tells them, well, the two of them who aren't out cold, "But this idea that people have to fit into little boxes labeled 'men,' and 'women,' and must be pushed back into those boxes whenever they step out of them? It is not a Communist idea. It is a method used by the Christian churches, the Catholics in particular, to control you. Tupac Amaru would be ashamed to be associated with you. Marx would be ashamed of you. Lenin would be ashamed of you. Killing the weak does not make you strong, and does nothing to your oppressors but make them laugh at your foolishness."

 **4 June 1989: Solidarity wins in Polish elections**

"Happy Birthday!" Angharad says, throwing a box at Hermione.

Hermione catches it awkwardly, looks down at the brown paper wrapped box in her hands, then back up at the other Dragons. She shakes the box gently, "You didn't."

"We did. You start familiarization lessons tomorrow," Olmayra says.

"And you'll get to fly yours home when they deliver it next month."

"So how much is that going to suck?"

"With external tanks, about 18 hours, and three refuelings."

"I can't just take her _Between_?"

"That's hardly flying at all, and would you leave poor Gordon by herself on an 18 hour ferry flight?"

"I don't think Gordon likes me."

"She's jealous that I pay more attention to you."

"Really."

"Yeah, we need to figure out a fun dragon-assisted mission for her, we haven't done one for, really, years."

 **4 June 1989: Tiananmen Square crackdown takes place on live TV**

Lessa glares at the TV, then sighs, sets down her plate of cake, and refolds into Angharad. Hermione pats the seat beside her, opposite Luna, and smiles as she cuddles close.

Angharad firmly turns from the TV, and buries her face in Hermione's neck.

 **5 June 1989: 'Tank Man' temporarily halts an armored column on Chang'an Avenue in Beijing**

"Can we intervene here?" Angharad asks Luna quietly, watching as a tank advances on a white-shirted man with his shopping in his hands, on a street in China.

"Yes, but it won't do any good," Luna gathers Angharad in his arms, resting his chin on her shoulder, "Too much inertia, too much change too fast, and the kids are saying, 'We're changing too fast, it's causing problems, so we should change faster.' Thousands are going to die, and intervening now, or in the recent past, will only make things worse."

"Fuck. Can we just rescue some of 'em?"

"Few of of us speak Chinese," Luna doesn't answer. The tank stops, and the man climbs up to talk to the tank commander.

-*aWNB*-

Snatch and grab, carrying off screaming children, well, college students, but children for all the experience of the world they have, sometimes in draconic hands, sometimes four or five gathered into a hug for the dive _Between_ , not enough, never enough, but something.

Five who would be shot in Shanghai that afternoon, three young men, two young women, Harry distracting them from the front, "No, today is a bad day for you to protest, people are going to die."

Luna spreads his arms a little wider than he should be able to, pushes the five forward into Harry's arms, and they dive _Between_.

 **15 June 1989: Fianna Fail fails to win a majority in the Irish general election**

Hermione jerks her head around, the still-heavy helmet first resisting the turn, then torquing her neck as she tries to get eyes on the other fighter, already banking and climbing. Not turning quickly enough, radius too big, even as her blood pools despite the pressure of her inflated g-suit, vision tunneling, flaps and air brake, murdering precious speed to tighten the turn. Airbrake down, flaps up, line up the gun, pull the trigger, airframe shuddering as a thousand dollars worth of blanks fire.

She drops, altitude for airspeed, pushing down the urge to dive _Between_ and come back down on her opponent from above. Her target indicates killed, and she puts him from her mind, Gordon still in the fight, and two of the Americans.

Gordon's high, and one of the Americans is going for a missile lock, and the other is . . . right . . . there.

Throttle back, stick back, stall horn, fall to the left, throttle forward, sidewinder lock, flip the cover, push the button, stall to the right, recover, lock tone . . .

No missile to be seen, stall left, continue into a roll, tone lost, three thousand feet to the ground, aim for the sky, and . . . lock. Fire.

Gordon's coming out of the sun.

 **BING BING BING**

"Fuck!"

 **16 June 1989: 250,000 attend the reburial of Imre Nagy, Hungarian prime minister executed in 1958**

"You just need to be able to stall one wing without stalling the other," Hermione says, "It can be a bit of a learning curve, and I had to dive _Between_ a lot while I was figuring it out the first time, but it's been pretty easy to translate to the Salamander, I've only put myself in scary places a few times, and I've had to bail myself out once so far."

"So, it's very dangerous, and suicidal for non-dragons."

Hermione ponders a moment, "Probably," she nods, "Proper thrust-vectoring should make it functional for normal humans, though."

"And when will that happen?"

"Next year?"

 **21 June 1989: British police arrest 250 people for celebrating the summer solstice at Stonehenge**

"Chairman Boren, Senators of the committee, thank you for letting me speak here today," Mr. Webster, Director of the CIA, begins his remarks, "The U.N. Spacey is not, despite their recent rebranding, a new organization, nor a subsidiary of the U.N.

"Until last month, they were the Assassin's Guild, an extra-national non-governmental agency devoted, in their own words, to truth, justice, and the American Way."

A scoffing noise comes from one of the spectators.

"Ironic, I know, considering the name, the fact that they have opposed American operations as much, or more, than those of any other nation, and that no American citizens are among their senior leadership.

"However, the American operations they opposed involve such un-American behavior as murdering prisoners without a trial, burning women, children, houses, and villages, and supporting regimes willing to use poison gas on their own citizens. We convicted an admiral and a colonel for their involvement in trying to fund the terrorist Contra organization against the will of Congress.

"The Guild began operating in 1985, as a mercenary company consisting mostly of Angharad Potter," he pauses while a slide of ten-year-old Angharad comes up on the screen, "Also known as Lessa," another slide, "Harry," another slide, "Or Ramoth," this one is an action shot, Ramoth's left front hand on the hood of a Soviet-made military truck, her right hand reaching in the door hole for the driver, "And the members of several youth gangs she recruited in London. They were trained by the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, and conducted anti-terrorism campaigns against the Contras.

"That November they began disaster relief efforts, responding to the eruption of Nevado De Ruiz, in Columbia, and recruiting Olmayra Sanchez, 13," A picture of a pretty young woman with curly black hair, "The second dragon to join the League of Dragons," the slide changes, to Olmayra's feathered serpent form, in front of the impaled bodies of 74 Argentinian criminals, "The League is the only reason the Guild has been effective on a global scale, providing direction, focus, and instantaneous transport," Another slide, Ramoth in her LBV, the ten members of her squad loaded down her torso in its pouches, "Heavy lifting," Ruth, picking up a well drilling rig in Africa, "And impossible rescues," Ruth, again, this time setting down a B-47 at Dulles airport.

 **30 June 1989: Opening night at Corcoran Gallery of Robert Mapplethorpe's exhibition of photography**

Angharad walks into the Corcoran Gallery, Luna on her arm. Hermione drops out of _Between_ in a flutter of skirts, and takes Luna's other arm.

"I thought you weren't interested," Olmayra observes from behind them.

"I'm not really interested in the pictures," Hermione admits, "But spending an evening with my friends enjoying the fruits of my privacy work? I'd like that."

"Did you have fun at Salamander school?"

"Oh, it was awesome! With the proper load out, I can, without cheating, outfight any of the available threat forces," she laughs, "Well, any of the ones the U.S. provided for us to play with. No F-117s, but they had both a MIG-29 and an SU-27 for us."

"Oh, nice. How'd that go?"

"Our long range missiles are just a little better than theirs, and the radar's much better, so practically we'd never have to close with them. If it comes to a gunfight, the MIGs a little slower and the Sukhoi's a little faster, but I consistently outflew them."

 **6 July 1989: Abd Al-Hadi Ghanim kills 16 and wounds 27 by attacking a commuter bus driver and driving the bus off a cliff.**

A nondescript man stands up from his seat, and steps over the line towards the driver.

An old woman, wearing a dust-colored hijab, a black niqab covering all of her face except her green eyes and a glimpse of her wrinkled nose, leans forward, grabs his wrist, and squeezes, "Think about your wife, and your son. He will grow up without you. Is that what your want?" she asks softly in Arabic, her voice curled by age, "Will killing these 40 people contribute even a hundredth of a percent to the freedom of Palestine, or will you be reviled and left to rot in an Israeli jail for the rest of your life?"

"Let me go, old woman."

"Sit down, you can always die another day."

He jerks his hand, but she doesn't let go. He raises his hand, looks out the window as the landscape flattens, then slumps and turns to head back to his seat

"Talk to your wife, talk to your grandmothers. Men's solutions haven't worked for forty years, maybe women's solutions would work better."

He shakes his head, dropping into his seat.

 **7 July 1989:** **Aim for the Top: Gunbuster** **episodes 5 & 6 released**

The 500 seat theater is full, with people standing in the back and down the sides.

A great cheer fills the room as the Exelion collapses into a singularity.

Kazumi is crying happily in Ohta's arms, and Noriko runs off, face scrunched.

"Gomen, gomen ne, Smith, mou nakanai yakusoku datta no ne," Noriko says, crying, looking down at Gunbuster, the sky painted by the sunset behind her, the ribbon she received from Smith in her hand.

The sound of running feet makes her look up, and Jung-Freud grabs her into a hug, "Yokatta," she pants, "Buji datta yokatta, Noriko."

Noriko looks up at her, and Jung leans closer, her head tilting to the side, as the music comes up with the closing titles, Noriko pressing her face no Jung's shoulder, then it fades to black, "tsuzuku." in the lower right corner. The crowd murmurs,

"Juu go nen ato-," appears written down the middle of the screen in kanji, and the lights come up, the characteristic streaks of a paused VHS tape appearing over the video.

"We have a choice," Lessa addresses her anime fen, "We can watch the last episode now, or we can go home, think about it, and watch it tomorrow."

The murmuring gets louder, then quiets.

"Tonight?"

About a hundred hands raise.

"Tomorrow?"

About three hundred hands raise.

"Tomorrow night it is!"

 **10 July 1989: Approx. 300,000 Siberian coal miners go on strike.**

The crowd is smaller for this, a second showing of all six episodes of Gunbuster, but there are still over twenty fen clustered in the front rows of the theater.

"Juu go nen ato-," the opening titles of the last episode say.

Nine minutes later, as the admiral is speaking, pilots prepare, and the fleets array, we watch Jung and Noriko, in their underwear, as Jung finishes brushing Noriko's hair, and Noriko leans back, stretching her face towards Jung.

Groans of disappointment sound from the small crowd as the scene cuts to Kazumi, looking at her nails, a serious look on her face, then to the Sizzler mass-production Gunbusters.

Someone cheers at the sight of a dolphin, floating beside one of the control consoles.

"Otha-San," Jung floats up the tunnel behind Kazumi, grabs her by the shoulder, and plants a firm kiss on her lips, "Noriko ni tanomu," she says, folding a long key fob labeled "Gunbuster," into Kazumi's hand.

"Jung," Kazumi stammers, her free hand drifting to her lips.

"Mada ittai koto ga yamaho aru kedo, ashita ni suru wa," Jung says, "Ja ne," and speeds off down the corridor.

A moment, and multiple giant robot launches later, Kazumi steps up to Noriko, "Noriko, ni gou kan ni wa watakushi ga loru wa."

"Onee-sama?"

"Kore ga saigo kara," Kazumi lets her bag droop, tilts Noriko's chin up, leans down, and kisses her gently, "Jung ga, sono kissu ga tanomareta," she explains.

A palpable tension grows in the watching fen as the timer reaches zero. A feminine gasp of despair sounds as the timer starts counting up.

"Atashitachi no akachan," Noriko says, and a fan whoops for joy, "sonna omoi sasasakanai wa yo."

Cut to the Admiral looking grave.

It is an hour after the showing ends before the last of the fen leave, still discussing the series, non and less-fluent Japanese speakers clarifying what certain lines meant.

"What!" a feminine voice yells, "Jung's pregnant?"

"Probably. Noriko said she didn't want "our baby" to need? have? to think about time, time dilation, and she used "Jung-tachi" when she told her to go."

"That's fucking awesome!"

"I feel bad for Jung and the baby, having to grow old without Noriko or Kazumi."

"Forever War."

"What?"

"It's a novel, main character is a soldier, but interstellar travel takes a long time, with lots of time dilation, so hundreds of years pass while he goes through a few years of combat."

"So they could bank on Jung's war hero rep to time travel to when Noriko and Kazumi made it back."

"Probably. It might take a long time to figure out when they'd make it back."

Lessa watches the fen disperse, Luna cuddled against her shoulder, and leans back further against Hermione.

Hermione pulls Luna closer, squashing Lessa against her.

"Thirty-seven seconds to bring the subtext into the foreground," Luna says softly, "I like the new version better."

"Will it do as well?"

"It's already done better, just from getting onto the canteen shelves."

"That's good."

 **17 July 1989: First flight of the B-2 stealth bomber**

Hermione and Angharad look up from their folding chairs in the desert, following the great, flat shape of the new plane with their binoculars, "That's pretty cool."

"What's Luna doing? She said we should be here."

"Yeah, she's going to be here tomorrow, but she's up to something in Burma with Olmayra."

 **18 July 1989: Actress Rebecca Schaefer is murdered by an obsessed fan.**

"This article, by Li Peng, but supposedly by Deng, caused the protest to metastasize," Zhao Ziyang says through the translator, "Before this, the protests were in the square, but really hadn't spread. After Li's article, things got worse, faster."

 **27 July 1989: Thai financial scammers sentenced to 141,078 years, despite a statutory limit of 20 years for fraud**

"Mr. Lee," the tall, pretty girl greets in English, her dark curly hair bouncing with her steps, grabbing his elbow and leading him around a corner before his guards react, then letting him go, "Have a lovely day."

She takes a left at the next corner of the building, and he looks around. The weather is warm, even hot, the streets covered in yellow dust, the buildings short and dusty around him. Men are dressed in suits, or long robes, and women are in black chador.

-*aWNB*-

"What did you do? Zhao Ziyang is back in power in China, and the Tiananmen Square protests resolved peacefully."

"I picked up Li Peng at the beginning of April and dropped him off in eastern Iran today."

"That's it?"

"That was it. Without Li agitating, Zhao managed to muddle through, but we lost the "We are old, we don't matter anymore" speech."

"That was a good speech."

 **29 July 1989:** **Kiki's Delivery Service** **released.**

The core group of anime fen is enhanced, this time, by friends, partners, and a few children. With four dragons shuttling the new, hundred-person dragon-bags, it takes four trips _Between_. Each company-sized group is met by a local guide, and led, chattering happily in the Spacey's normal mix of languages, to a different theater.

The last group of fen is handed off, the four dragon-bags under guard, and the dragons, with their squads, meet up with the Gainax staff to walk from the station to the theater.

"Inoue's got us in a tight spot," Anno's complaining, "Even with the slightly better than expected sales on Gunbuster, money's scarce, and he's picked us up a project that can't even break even, much less turn us a profit."

"How bad is it?"

"The numbers aren't final, but something like a hundred million yen."

"Ouch. That would hurt," Lessa turns to Hermione, and cocks an eyebrow.

Hermione returns a crooked smile and a half-shrug.

"I'm really glad you were so bold about Jung, Noriko, and Kazumi," Luna says, "Two lesbians and a bi girl, all of them human and minimally traumatized? I adore how normal you made it."

"You wouldn't believe the fights we had over the baby line."

"Oh, I can," Olmayra says, laughing, "I saw a few of them, back home."

"We eventually convinced the doubters that with 80 years to advance, even, or especially, with a war for the fate of humanity on, the medical and social issues would be, if not worked out, at least lessened. So, yeah, two bi girls and a pregnant lesbian."

"So you see Noriko as bi?"

"You don't? What about Smith?"

 **31 July 1989: Hezbollah announces that it has hung a U.S. LTC in retaliation for Israel capturing a Hezbollah leader. LTC William R. Higgins is officially declared dead 6 Jan 1990**

"Ah, fuck," Harry sets down the newspaper, scowling at the Arabic script.

Hermione takes the paper, biting her lip as she puzzles out the headline, then nods, "Yep."

"How many terrorist organizations do we have left?"

"Hezbollah, the IRA, particularly the Provisional branch, there's an Islamist fundy group running out of Saudi, ETA in Spain, Abu Nidal, MNLF in the Philippines, a dozen others, mostly clustered in places of limited opportunity."

"Why the fuck are these idiots fighting over this chunk of wasteland anyway?"

"Parts of it are pretty, Lebanon is lovely, and most of it used to be prettier."

"Yeah, but the whole region's over populated, overgrazed, and over-irrigated. You've tasted the dust in the Sunni Triangle."

"Yeah, salt-breeze a hundred miles from the ocean."

"So nothing to be done other than kill idiots and educate women?"

"Unless we can change the climate, yeah, nothing to be done." *note 1

 **9 August 1989: The savings and loan bailout, the largest to date, is signed by President Bush**

Capitían de Corbeta Harry Crewe sits down, again, with the Ayatollah, "Your government is funding many terrorist groups throughout the region." *note 2

"We fund many groups," is admitted with a half-shrug, "Some of them may be terrorists."

"We would appreciate if your government could influence the groups you fund to renounce terror," Harry says, leaning forward a tiny bit, "It would increase your moral authority, improve your standing in the international community, and raise public opinions of Islam in general and Shia in particular. And it would be a great favor to us."

"Why is that? So the Israelis will sit unopposed in Jerusalem?"

"So we won't have to kill as many young Arab men. We have eradicated the terrorist groups in the Americas, mostly by killing them. We have more people, more resources, and more friends now, and want to use those to peacefully resolve problems."

"How will that help return Jerusalem to Palestine?"

"Look at America, and India. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Ghandi. Both strove non-violently against oppression. Both were more effective than violent movements. Both were assassinated. Neither was completely successful. Black Americans are no longer segregated by law, and their opportunities have improved, but they are still discriminated against, and have fewer opportunities than white Americans. India is free from Britain, but remains a poor country. Pakistan is even poorer, and would have been much better off if they hadn't left India."

The old man takes a sip of tea, thinking.

Harry takes a sip of his own, eats one of the dolmeh, and settles back.

 **15 August 1989: P.W. Botha resigns as State President of South Africa, replaced by F.W. de Klerk**

"We can provide cell painters, but you'll have to train them. We also have a dozen people who want to learn animation techniques. That will provide about twenty million yen each," Angharad smiles, leaning back, green firestone glinting at her ears.

Inoue nods, "That would definitely help," he looks down at the table, "Your implication that you could help with my poor decision making is the only reason I'm still here."

"We negotiated with NHK, and get some thematic and editorial control in exchange for co-sponsoring Nadia. That will bring another sixty million yen your way."

"Oh? What are you thinking?"

 **20 August 1989: the Menendez brothers shoot and kill their wealthy parents in Beverly Hills**

"Young men want to get married. When they can't, they are at risk for improper thoughts, improper actions."

"Why wouldn't they be able to get married?"

"Around here? Too many old men have too many wives each. That makes it hard for a young man who isn't pretty, isn't rich, doesn't have have a well-to-do family, to find a wife. If the economy was better in Iran, if young women believed that a good life could be found in Iran, if they believed that their daughters would have a better life in Iran than where they live, then people would come, and that would help, but few people outside Iran believe that."

"Why don't they believe?"

"Why didn't the Iraqis have an Islamic revolution when Saddam was killed?"

He strokes his beard, "They think we have too much focus on the next world, and not enough on this one," he sighs, disappointed. "Why do people care so much about this world?"

"It is all they can remember. It is hard to wait for a reward later, when your neighbor has a reward now," Harry takes a sip of tea, "Why do you care about liberating Palestine, when the Palestinians will be free in paradise?"

"That is strange, is it not."

 **23 August 1989: Yusef Hawkins attacked and killed in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York, while shopping for a used car. Ten to thirty white youth attacked him and his two friends on the suspicion of them dating a white girl**

Harry drops the paper Angharad was holding, and stands, "I'm going to go beat some kids up in New York, you guys want to come along?"

"Why are we beating up kids?"

"They shot a black kid because they didn't care enough to notice that he'd never been in their neighborhood before."

"The kid died, I'm guessing?"

"Yeah, he was in the neighborhood to look at a used car, and the kids who shot him were pissed that one of their neighbor girls was hanging out with some black kids."

-*aWNB*-

"Stop!" Olmayra yells, from the back of the group of four dragons.

Two of the chasing boys stop, and one calls "Guys?!"

The other boys keep running. The four black kids at the front turn right at the corner, and the crowd of white boys surround them, waving their bats. One of the boys points a cute little .32 at the trapped black kids.

 **POP**

Lessa drops _Between_. She steps forward with her left foot, sweeping up with her left hand, pushing the pistol up and off line.

 **POP**

She steps forward with her right foot, palm strike to the top of boy's solar plexus hard enough to break his sternum. He drops, the pistol falling separately.

Recoiling backfist to the point of the boy next to him's jaw. He drops, jaw looking funny, out cold.

Hook the ankle of the boy on the other side with a foot, pull, stomp the arm that dropped the bat, whip the other foot up into the ribs of boy number four, recoil, palm strike to the occipital bone of number five, step, step, left fist into the short ribs of number six, only one still on his feet . . . not any more.

"You alive, kid?"

He gurgles. His buddies stare on, useless, scared. Lessa drops onto her heels, pulling his shirt up, "Well," she says, "What's his name?"

"Yusef," one of his friends answers.

"Yusef, you've been shot in the lung, but you haven't died yet, and if we get you to the hospital in time you won't. I'm going to roll you up onto your shot side, so the blood can't pool in your good lung, OK?"

He nods. Lessa rolls him onto his right side.

Olmayra has a Motorola half-wave cell phone out, "Yes, we're at the corner of 20th and Bay Ridge. I have one young man who's been shot with a .32 automatic, and the twenty-five young men who were chasing him." she nods, "No, they aren't going to escape, they all have broken bones, are unconscious, or both," she nods again, "Yes, we caught up as the first shot was fired, so we made sure they wouldn't cause more trouble before the cops can arrive," she shakes her head, "No, we need an ambulance, the kid who got shot," she looks at Lessa, quirks an eyebrow.

Lessa's squad medic has his kit out, and is digging through it.

"No exit wound, but he's sucking in air," Lessa accepts the airtight dressing, holding it while the medic wipes off enough blood that it will stick.

"He's got a bullet in his right lung, and we're getting an airtight dressing on, but the sooner the medevac gets here the better," she nods again, "I can stay on the phone."

It is several minutes before the sound of sirens reach them.

 **24 August 1989: Voyager 2 makes closest approach to Neptune**

"Two of the kids stopped at a verbal warning. The rest of them apparently thought it would be great fun to execute a kid they'd never met for the crime of walking while black."

"Three dislocated limbs, ten concussions and twenty-seven broken bones, it's a little excessive."

"I hit six of them, once each. I struck to disable, because I didn't know what else they might be carrying, I didn't want to get hit with a bat even if that was all they were carrying, and I didn't want them to escape."

"You mean to say that the other three girls took out six each as well?"

"Olmayra was hanging back around the corner with the two who stopped when she told them to."

"Nine or ten each, then?"

"Probably seven and twelve."

"Why did you only get six, then?"

"Because I stopped the kid with the pistol, first."

"We gotta let the Spaceys free. FBI says they have diplomatic immunity," a rumpled looking older white man says, pulling up a chair. "Thank you for saving the kid," he tells Lessa, "It's not your normal gig, though. Why did you do it?"

"The news coverage pissed me off."

He nods, "Detective Healy, NYPD," holds out a hand.

"Lessa Potter, U.N. Spacey," she shakes.

"Thank you again for stepping in."

"I wish I didn't have to."

"So do I."

 **30 August 1989:** **Bubblegum Crisis** **episode 6: Red Eye's released.**

It's a standing-room only crowd again as Lessa starts the LD.

14 minutes in, Sylia drives up to Priss's trailer in her utterly pretentious Mercedes SL-300, and climbs out. Inside, Priss zips a bag closed, stares at the poster on her wall, for her first headline concert, the leaves the room, panning over a machine that goes ping, then Sylvie's comatose form.

"Okite yo," she says softly, holding the girl's hand.

Lessa has to pause the LD, because the crowd's too loud to hear over.

After the ending credits, Priss is feeding Sylvie soup, sitting on her bed beside the injured girl, who is leaned against her, cuddling close, most of a smile on her face.

Pan across the machine that goes ping, to Anri, looking even paler than normal, and festooned with wires and tubes.

 **10 September 1989: Hungary opens it's western borders to refugees from the German Democratic Republic**

"Hey, Gordon, you up for an experiment?"

"Depends," the older woman smirks up at Hermione, tilting her head a bit to the side and dilating her pupils.

Hermione blinks, then shakes her head, laughing a bit, "Cool trick with the pupils, but not like that."

"Sigh," Gordon says, "You terrible tease, playing with an innocent maiden's heart."

"Quite," Hermione says in a dry tone, "You know how I need physical contact to pull things _Between_?"

"Yes?"

Hermione drops _Between_ with Gordon, dropping back out by their Salamanders.

"How?"

Hermione smiles at her, giving Gordon a "you can figure it out" gesture with her chin.

"We weren't touching, but we were both touching the same ground,"

Hermione gives a half-shake of her head.

"And the same air."

"Yes."

 **17-22 September 1989: Hurricane Hugo kills at least 71**

"Tso," Luna says, "We can watch this storm and worry, or we can go play in the storm now, and come back to figure out what to do later."

Harry strokes his chin.

Hermione frowns at the TV.

Olmayra shakes her head, "Let's go play now."

Two minutes later four dragons drop out of Between at 55,000 feet over the eye of the storm.

" _I can feel the wind of it up here. That's crazy_ ," Hermione laughs, gliding down on wide golden wings.

" _Hugo's category four right now,_ " Ruth says.

" _140 MPH sustained. What's that in knots_?" Hermione asks.

" _One twenty two,_ " Ramoth says, " _I looked it up in case you asked_."

Olmayra laughs, great feathered wings cocked for best glide distance.

" _What's so funny_?"

" _Ramoth timing it just so she could look up that info for you_."

" _She_ ," Hermione laughs, " _Thank you, pretty lady_."

" _Don't mention it. We've got a storm to surf_."

 **19 September 1989: Hermione Granger's 10th birthday**

"Happy Birthday, Hermione!" Luna says, plopping a present in front of her.

Hermione traces a paisley on the metallic brown wrapping paper, "Really?"

Luna nods.

"I don't think it's been a year since my last birthday, back in June."

"You haven't. It's been ten years since the day you were born."

"Oh."

 **22 September 1989: An IRA bomb kills 11, and injures 22 at the Royal Marine School of Music barracks in Deal, Kent**

"I don't see why you are trying to bring this up again," the Chief Mugwump says, waving the Persian representative to the ICW back to his seat, "When they were known by the much more magical name of the Assassin's Guild, we had a vote, and declared that they were a muggle organization, operating in the muggle world, and thus not a threat to the Statute of Secrecy.

"When they started cleaning up the muggle bandits and death squads in Africa, we had another vote, and again declared them entirely muggle.

"Just because the muggle in charge of Iran failed to die when you poisoned him doesn't mean that this "U.N. Spacey" is at all magical. None of them use wands, brew potions, or even wear pointy hats any day but Halloween."

"They Apparate, and use a variation of the Animagus transformation."

"We had a witch tag along as a volunteer for one of their well-drilling projects in Africa, and she was quite certain that however they change places, it is not Apparition.

"As for them being Animagi, find me an Animagus who can take on more than one animal, or human, form. The League of Dragons change form as easily as I can conjure a chair. Whatever they do is not magic, and thus not subject to the Statute of Secrecy."

 **23 September 1989: A cease-fire is implemented in Lebanon**

The Iranian F-14 turns sharply, wings fully swept forward, condensation forming across the top of the entire wing surface.

Another Iraqi Mirage drops out to watch, "killed."

Gordon's north high, Hermione's almost, tone, launch. The last of the Iraqis join the other fighters, out of the exercise.

"Just Zandi left. Any idea if he's still got missiles?" *note 3

"Pretty sure he got five kills, but," Hermione replies, "Two sidewinders left. You?"

"One. I'll see if I can herd him your way."

Gordon drops from 45,000 feet, and Zandi lights the afterburners, climbing up towards her as Hermione fights for a missile lock. Tone. Launch.

Zandi jerks his F-14, condensation flashing, miss.

"Down to gun," Gordon says.

"One sidewinder," Hermione replies, fighting to line up a shot on the heavier, faster aircraft. Tone.

Zandi pulls away, fighting for altitude, evading slightly, and Gordon arcs toward him.

The F-14's wings swing forward, half loop, wings back, half roll, half left.

"Fuck!" Gordon says eloquently, brakes out, diving turn to the right.

Tone. Launch.

"I'm out," Gordon says, headed out of the fight to spectate.

Zandi evades, somehow, loosing altitude. Hermione closes, not yet, not yet, maybe, 90 round trigger pull.

 **BING** **BING** **BING**

 **26 September 1989: The last Vietnamese troops withdrawn from Cambodia**

"It was a double-kill. Anywhere but an exercise one or both of us would have broken it off and headed for home, probably him, because that F-14's fast enough to get away from me."

"The Iraqis acknowledge he's got three kills. The Iranians claim he's got eight and three probables."

"Yeah? Gordon's got seven."

"Mostly through dragon-assisted cheating."

"If you're not cheating you're not trying."

 **1 October 1989: Civil Unions between same sex partners becomes legal in Denmark**

"No, not space infantry, space marines. Spleens," Luna says quite seriously.

Olmayra, not as convinced of the immutability of English, nods first.

"I guess so," Harry says, then smirks, "The spleen lost his spleen in spring."

"I guess that'll work. If any of the spleens come up with a better name we can use that instead."

 **6 October 1989: Betty Davis dies at 81**

"No, not Spatial Infantry," Angharad shakes her head, "I know it matches the Russian construction, but most of us don't speak Russian."

 **9 October 1989: Voronezh UFO**

Fall of 1989, and the Somalis are still trying to fix thirty years of Siad Barre's determined effort to destroy his country, on top of Italy's twenty years, and Britain's decades before that. The fundies are mostly down, the qabil, clans, somewhat working together, and the IMF has been told to go pound sand until they are willing to be paid in Somali Shillings.

Natasha Fatale, the U.N. Spacey's new, former Soviet, S3, is briefing the situation, "We won the war in Nicaragua, destroyed the Columbian terrorists, there are a few terrorist organizations still in Central and South America, but they haven't done anything since we destroyed the Columbian cartels. Nicaragua says they will renegotiate our contract after the elections.

"The Somali's aren't paying us squat, which is understandable, because they don't have squat, but they're to the point where they can feed themselves and us, which is much better than things were.

"We haven't impaled a single bandit in Africa in over six weeks."

 **13 October 1989: Friday the 13th Mini-crash: The Dow drops 190 points, probably driven by junk-bond collapse**

"Happy Birthday, Angharad!" Hermione greets when she drags into the chow hall after morning PT.

"No, no, no. I distinctly remember. My birthday was last year," Angharad says with a straight face.

 **18 October 1989: Hungary votes to restore multi-party democracy**

"The Soviets have agreed that we can keep the torpedos, and the Americans can have a month, supervised, to look over the Komsolmolets, and we owe them another five million rubles on top of that," Contralmirante Drew, the G4, briefs.

"As we don't have that in available cash, I'm guessing they'll take payments?"

"Yes, ten monthly payments of ten million rubles each."

"And when can we take delivery of the _Macross_?"

"At the end of next year. Our inspectors will be allowed to observe and report on the construction progress as it proceeds," CAM Drew says, "Construction work will re-commence with the first payment, and they'll begin building production NERVA rockets for us when the Komsolmolets is returned."

"Let's get them that first payment, then. Have the Americans prepared their orbital habitat for their research team?"

"Yes, they have. It is ready to be lifted, and their personnel will be available within 48 hours of the Soviets accepting our payment."

"We're still getting six American NERVA rockets and $800 million from the Americans, right?"

"Yes, with the first $100 million delivered within 24 hours of the Soviets accepting our payment."

"Provisions to equip the Macross with the additional engines have already been designed, correct?"

"Correct. The Soviets will need to inspect our external tanks in order to prepare them for mounting, but the Macross should be able to mount all twenty-seven of them, and the engine boom is designed to handle the stress of twenty-seven NERVA rockets, or a nuclear salt water rocket."

"Are the Americans or Soviets willing to build us an NSW?"

"Their space engineering people are eager for the opportunity, but higher up the chains of command," CAM Drew says, shrugging, "They want us to demonstrate the usefulness of the NERVA engines first."

"Then let's get the Soviets paid."

 **23 October 1989: Phillips disaster in Pasadena, TX kills 23 and injures 314**

Ramoth grabs the American habitat, dropping _Between_ with the 500 ton structure, dropping out a breathless moment later in a high enough orbit for it to drop neatly into L-5.

Maneuvering rockets fire, slowly starting to spin the cylindrical structure, 60 meters across and thirty meters long, gyro stabilizing the structure. The rockets cut out after a few seconds, the habitat spinning at one revolution every five minutes, accelerating towards the planet under gravity.

Ramoth watches a moment, then drops _Between_.

 **28 October 1989: U.S. Flag Protection Act takes effect.**

The Soviet habitat is, as rather expected, even larger than the American one, a giant coin, over 1500 tons, a hundred and twelve meters around, and packed, as the American habitat had been, with equipment the Soviets wanted in orbit.

Ramoth drops it from _Between_ , and it starts to fall into L-5.

 **November 1989: First commercial dial-up internet connection made**

The American habitat is clamped to the _Komsomolets_ with a thick, armored-looking tunnel, stretched from the five and a half RPM disk, and tiny plumes of gas are venting from the damaged submarine, slowly cutting off one by one as the leaks are plugged.

The Soviet habitat is barely in view, tiny flashes of maneuvering units as they inspect one of the external tanks.

 **7 November 1989: First African American state governor and mayor of New York City elected**

"You wanted to talk to me?" Lessa asks Yusef, who is home from the hospital but still recovering.

"Yes, I wanted to say thank you in person, and ask if you know how I can help. I didn't believe," he pauses, continues, "I didn't want to believe that New Yorkers could be so racist. When they held that protest? They called my mother a nigger in front of the TV cameras. In Brooklyn. That kind of shit happens in Johannesburg, maybe in Birmingham, not in New York, not in Brooklyn."

"I remember when I realized that the IRA had a point, that the British government was as much at fault for the Troubles as the terrorists. It's a hard feeling to learn that the good guys aren't always good."

"What can we do?" he asks, "A lot happened in the 1960s, and it got a lot better for a lot of people, but it's still not better."

"Most people stopped fighting when things got better," Lessa shrugs a shoulder, "I'm sure the assassinations didn't help. The loudest, best voices were cut down just as things started to get better, so a lot of people, maybe without really deciding to, went 'it's better now, let's stop before we get killed, too.'"

"What is that quote, 'first they ignore you, then they mock you, then they fight you, then you win.'"

"Yes, for non-violent action. The Assassins's Guild was founded on the idea of peace, or at least protecting civilians, through violent counterterrorist actions, and that is still a large part of the U.N. Spacey's mission."

"Things are a lot better in Africa than when I started school. There are no more terrorists in South America. But they called my mother a nigger, on the news, in Brooklyn. How do we fix that?"

"I don't know. Talk to the grandmothers in your neighborhood. talk to the grandmothers in Bensonhurst. They may not know how to fix it, but I'm sure they know a lot of ways that don't work, and that's a place to start."

"Yeah, that's right."

"Getting the grandmothers involved in Africa was a big part of fixing things there."

 **10 November 1989: Gaby Kennard becomes first Australian woman to fly solo around the world**

"The colors on the street, red, white and blue," Lessa sings softly, flipping through the budget CAM Drew provided, red pencil in hand.

"People shuffling in the street, people sleeping in their shoes," she scrawls a note next to the line for fuel, "Seems low."

"Don't feel like satan, but I am to them. Keep on rocking in the free world," she underlines the PL-5s, "Can we get a discount? China's ramped up production finally."

"Keep on rocking in the free world," near the fifteenth line of rifle ammo, "Would standardizing save any funds? Last I looked we were getting by well on mostly-surplus, so I don't think so, but."

"Never get to fall in love, never get to be cool," next to the line for T-55 maintenance, "*_* That's crazy. Anyone dumb enough to buy these off of us?"

"Got a thousand points of light, for the homeless man, got a kindler, gentler machine gun in hand," Lessa turns back to the front page, and scans quickly through again.

 **14 November 1989: Elections in Namibia bring the South-West African People's Organization to power**

Gordon half-rolls her Salamander, flying inverted, fifteen feet beneath Hermione's Salamander, "Set."

"Dropping," Hermione answers, before pulling both of them _Between_. Both engines cough, air starved, then recover in the thinner atmosphere of 60,000 feet.

Both planes roll away to the right, and Gordon looks around, trying to beat the GPS to a position lock, "That's Everest down there, isn't it?"

"Pin pon!" Hermione replies, "Climbing season is well over, and the Nepali government gave us written permission for supersonic flights through the region today."

"So no one should be at risk from any avalanches we set off?"

"Everyone's been warned," Hermione says, "Catch me if you can!" Her Salamander drops, full afterburner, out of sight, pale grey vanishing against blinding white.

 **16 November 1989: six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her teenage daughter killed by U.S. trained Salvadoran**

 **soldiers in San Salvador**

Lessa twists, bladed hand striking just under the man's sternum, fingers punching through, up, behind the ribs, and rips his beating heart from between scratched, bruised lungs. He drops, almost silent, staring, horrified, as she spins, throwing his still-beating heart into the next man's face.

He screams, loudly, desperately, "No!" **gasp** , "¡me rindo!" dropping his rifle, "¡No me mates!" he falls to the floor, pressing his bloody face to it, eyes screwed closed.

The last soldier is made of sterner stuff, or just panics differently, and opens fire with his rifle, **braap** , **braap** , **braap**. Unfortunately for him, he is too shaken to aim, and manages not to hit anyone while firing from less than two meters away. Lessa hits him in the nose, driving his nasal bones up through the front of his skull into his brain.

She looks around, one live soldier, four live priests, a crying woman being cradled to her daughter's breast, blood, bullet holes, a pervasive stench of death. She takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, and drops _Between_.

~*aWNB*~

"You've got to rein these guys in, Mr. Montano, or they are going to get you jailed if you're lucky, or executed if you're not. They've decided that Ellacuria is a valid target." *note 4

"He's a priest, why would," Vice Minister Montano sighs, "He's saying that FMLN isn't wrong, and should be negotiated with."

"Yes. We're sitting on FMLN, but they are very disappointed in the current situation. I wouldn't be surprised if your people have heard that they really want a military solution. They think the people will rise up and fight alongside them."

"You do not."

"No, I don't. Things aren't bad enough in El Salvador for mass revolution. Ellacuria is a Spaniard, however, and popular. Killing him," Lessa shrugs, "It would be counter-productive."

"Yes, it would."

 **1 December 1989: Military coup attempt in the Philippines**

"Want an aircraft carrier?"

"What?" Hermione looks up from her book, blinking.

"The Americans are asking if we'd like the Coral Sea and Ranger."

"They're pretty sad," Luna says, "Both are due for refit, and they just docked Coral Sea for decommissioning."

"What are they asking, and how much would it cost to make them useful?"

 **2 December 1989: Final two Japanese combatants from WWII surrender**

"Apparently the Soviets heard about the offer from the Americans, they've offered us a couple of their Typhoon class, the Minsk, and the second Kuznetsov."

"Another booby prize?"

"Yep, but they have a much better opening bid: a thousand tons delivered to the Moon and ten tons delivered to Mars, and they'll refurb all four ships to our specifications."

Harry's lips twitch, then he refolds into Angharad and starts cackling.

 **3 December 1989: at the Malta Summit the USA and USSR say the cold war may be ending**

Gamera descends, neck stretched forward, arms spread wide, rockets blazing from the leg openings of her shell, thin wisps of ionizing gas wafting up from under her shell. After a moment the gas flow brightens, flowing up and around her face, arms, and shell, then fading, the giant turtle skipping like a stone along the imprecise boundary between the stratosphere and mesosphere.

 **flash**

 **flash**

 **flash**

 **flash**

 **flash**

 **flash**

After about an hour of this the sky begins to lighten and she dives _Between_.

 **6 December 1989: Marc Lepine murders 14 young women at a Montreal Ecole Polytechnique**

"So," Harry greets the young man with his letter in hand, "At this point you have done nothing to be prosecuted for," he scowls, "You did make me learn French, which is rude, but we can't prosecute you for that."

"What?"

"Here," Harry hands over the letter.

Marc unfolds it, blinks, then fishes it's identical, other than the bloodstains on the one Harry gave him, copy from his pocket.

"So I failed."

"I would have a hard time living with myself if I let you succeed."

"If you've already killed me once, why are you here now?"

"You killed fifteen people here today, so I want to save fifteen."

Marc looks down at the two letters in his hands, "Why?"

"I don't know if you're crazy, or just dumb, but blaming feminists because your dad was an asshole doesn't do you any favors."

"But the jobs," Marc starts.

"You ever hear of a guy named Marx, Marc?" Harry says, "He got a lot of shit wrong, but hereditary wealth is bad for society."

"What do you mean? What's the link between inheritance and women taking men's jobs?"

Harry puts a hand on Marc's shoulder, and drops them _Between_.

Marc gasps, startled by the cold, airless dark of _Between_ , taking in the warm Somali air, "Where are we?"

"Somalia. Let's get you a cup of coffee."

 **6 December 1989: Final episode of Doctor Who airs in Britain**

"If your mom had stayed with your dad? All three of you could have been killed," Ahmed says, the young Algerian man sitting with Marc, Harry having left after making introductions, "I saw it too often, to too many kids in my neighborhood. Some people grow up with an idea of manly that is just toxic," he swirls his coffee, "Too many people." *note 5

 **21-25 December 1989: the Romanian Ceausescu dictatorship ends in the dictator's execution**

Ramoth sets the first Russian load down on the Moon, holding her breath while she adjusts the shipping container, they'd asked that it be set up level.

She eyeballs the two spirit levels, nods, and drops _Between_.

Notes:

1: See the Allan Savoy TED talk, read the dissenting opinions. Holistic grazing, and changing grazing patterns were first investigated in the 1970s, to mixed results. Harry & Co haven't come across them yet, but will before the end of 1991.

2: This sort of Socratic discussion, non-confrontational interaction, face to face, is the only way I can see that Imam Khomeini could have been influenced to a less hard-line stance. The only reason the Assassins have this opportunity to talk to him is that they ended the Iran-Iraq war by killing Sadam Hussein and pruning the Ba'ath party into actual democracy. Putting Harry Crewe through Arabic, Farsi, and Shariah lessons so he can function as a faqih was also necessary.

3: Look up Jalil Zandi on Badass of the Week. He's still flying in-story because the Iran-Iraq war ended early.

4: Former Vice Minister of Public Security Montano was a candy maker outside of Boston in 2008, when Spain issued an inditement for him and twenty others over the Jesuit Massacre. He spent 21 months in US prison for immigration fraud, then was extradited from the US to Spain to face charges 29 November 2017.

5: Marc is not going to be left unsupervised, and is getting his head adjusted as much as needed, whether he likes it or not. Harry is determined to save him from being a mass-murderer.

Log:

Early May 2017: Reading too many Harry Potter fanfic, and thinking about how one cannot, canonically, be a magical creature animagus. Pernese Dragons are non- magical . . .

Mid May 2017: Thinking about other books that would influence things, checked out a copy of The Blue Sword and Dragonriders of Pern

17 May 2017: Realized that, while the Harry Potter books are firmly removed from muggle time, this story isn't. It's all about what Harry's saving people thing would look like if it got Harry's full support. Hit up wikipedia for more historical context.

27 May 2017: Realized that, after chopping anything Harry wouldn't be paying attention to, that Olmayra's paying forward, and is interested in all of the disasters . . .

5 June 2017: More.

16 June 2017: More.

18 June 2017: More. Finished 1985 first draft.

22 June 2018: Finally found a way to continue 1989, after being stuck for about a year.

27 June 2018: 1989 draft finished.


End file.
